


I like to be called cupcake, too.

by ellsaba (vanillawg)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Human, Bakery AU, Carpenter!Derek, Drabbles, Everybody Lives, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Liberal use of parenthesis, M/M, Pining, Tags to be added, baker!Stiles, losers in love, oblivious boys, off hiatus hello again, translator!stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2018-09-25 22:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 45
Words: 49,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9848909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillawg/pseuds/ellsaba
Summary: It look a long time to come up with a name for the bakery.Or, it took a long time for Stiles to accept that “no, we’re not going to call it Stilinski’s Bakeski’s, what is wrong with you, it’s not even your business”. Which, yeah, wasn’t one of his greater ideas, but it was one of his ideas. Plural.





	1. Welcome to Stilinski's Bakeski's!

**Author's Note:**

> so if you're a musician and you're not a lazy piece of shit like i am, you do shit like scales and stuff to warm up and keep in practice. this is basically that. this is the literary form of scales. it's not meant to be good, or long, or anything - it's a lot for me to develop my writing technique without a bucketload of editing! :) and also to help settle my writing style, so for sure if you have any suggestions or anything, concrit is welcome!!!! and i'm going to try and update this as often as possible because it's sort of like a side project to do between schoolwork and other, plotty fics. so the updates won't be long but i'm gonna do them as often as possible to stay in writing shape!! also i tried to americanize the writing because it's from an american's pov, but if i got anything wrong hmu. <3

It look a _long_ time to come up with a name for the bakery.

Or, it took a long time for Stiles to accept that “no, we’re not going to call it _Stilinski’s Bakeski’s,_ what is wrong with you, it’s not even your business”. Which, yeah, wasn’t one of his greater ideas, but it was one of his _ideas_. Plural.

And, yeah, it wasn’t his business. Which totally removed any air of mystery they could have gone for, because across the front of the white-and-pink (“it’s peach. Don’t act like you don’t know.”) is plastered, in neat, cursive bubbly writing, _Lydia’s._

Seriously, they could have called it, like, _Bakery Machine,_ which is brilliant in so many ways Stiles can’t even begin to list them.

It’s just no fun to have to great every customer with, ‘Welcome to _Lydia’s_! I’m Stiles,’ and feel like he’s letting someone down, or something, even though he’s pretty sure that everyone knows he’s not Lydia.

That’s not the fucking point, though. The point is, like, principle, or something. They could have gone for something eccentric and draw in a very specific crowd, but they look like… a bakery, really.

Everything about _Lydia’s_ looks like a bakery – which, yeah, it’s a bakery, and there’s a massive glass display cabinet and three-tier cake stands, with, you know, _baked goods,_ but there’s a certain… _vibe_ about it. The floor is black-and-white tiled linoleum, and the soft looking peach sofas are scattered. There’s a mini library sort of thing in one corner, where you can borrow a book as long as you put one there in return, which was Stiles’ idea (and Lydia huffed and said, “that’s a really good idea, Stiles,” which he wanted in fucking writing. Preferably in peach, plastered on the front of the bakery), and small round tables between sofas, scratched and coffee-stained and pastel-colored. When you walk in, it smells like bread and icing and coffee, and it’s always warm-but-not-uncomfortably-warm.

Behind the counter there’s a massive cork board with pictures from weddings and events they’ve baked for, ‘thank you!’ cards and pictures of the other employees (taken on Lydia’s pretentious Instax camera, because “you can just print the photos, Lydia, it’s actually cheaper,” but Lydia is going for a _look,_ which _Stiles_ understands but his wallet doesn’t) – him, looking stupid in every single one, like the one where he’s sprawled across the floor, covered in flour, a few of Erica who looks fucking gorgeous in every one, and a disturbing amount of Boyd, who no matter what _always_ knows when a camera is pointed at him and will stop whatever he’s doing (including, one time, handing an ice cream to a child, holding it just above the kid’s reach. It’s fucking hilarious, and every time Stiles looks at the photo he cries) to stare deadpan at the camera. There’s also a bunch of Allison, and Lydia and Allison, because when Lydia claimed Allison as her best friend she also claimed all rights to her face, apparently, and has Allison from every angle. Stiles knows there’s a bunch more in a photo album in the break room, because when he’s the only one working (which is pretty often, actually) and no one’s in the bakery he likes to flick through it and smile.

Lydia also does this, and because she doesn’t know that Stiles does as well, he takes every opportunity to make fun of her for it.

Despite the tragic naming of the bakery, Stiles does love it. It pays well enough, it’s a cozy atmosphere, and he loves the customers. He does.

Which is why he’s not clawing his own eyes out right now.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but if you wanted the cake sooner, you should have-”

“What _kind,_ ” the woman seethes. She’s, like, scary angry, practically vibrating, “of bakery can’t bake a _fucking_ cake.”

Stiles resists the urge to sigh and throw himself on the floor. He literally does not understand why she’s surprised – Stiles is good, but he’s not “bake a five tier cake, decorate it, and deliver it my wedding an hour out within two days” good. He’s just – that’s suicide. He wouldn’t do that.

“Ma’am,” he says, staring at a point behind her head – just above the door frame, there’s a small crack, and it’s suddenly fucking fascinating – and trying to keep his voice level as possible. “I only have a finite amount of time, and most of it is spent working-”

“Is this not work?” She demands. “Am I not offering to exchange a lot of money for goods and services? Is that not what work is?”

He grits his teeth. “Well, _yeah_ , but a cake -”

“I can bake a cake in half a fucking hour, you have _two days._ To make, like, one thing -” it’s more than one thing, it’s a _wedding cake_ , “-and _Lydia’s_ is the best. _You’re_ the best.” She pauses for a second. “Or should I go to _Gerard’s_?”

Stiles literally sees red for a second. Fucking Gerard. He’s not stealing Stiles’ customers again, ever. Fucking rat. Shit, but she’s got him. Her face is victorious, because she’s fucking won and she knows it. Just hearing his name and Stiles’ blood is roaring. “I’ll do it,” he bites out, and she grins. Slams down the list, the money, and saunters off.

Lydia is going to kill him, if this list doesn’t first.

Stiles slams his head down on the counter, groans. Crap, he’s going to have to do it now, but it is a _lot_ of money she’s paying.

“Stiles?” A voice says, and Stiles didn’t even hear the bell, but his head snaps up so quickly he almost falls backwards, gets caught in the stool and has to drag himself back up to the counter, pretending his legs aren’t tangled right now.

Because, yeah, Stiles loves the bakery as a building, and he loves making shit, but this. This is his favorite part of working at _Lydia’s_.

Derek walks – more like stalks, really, because Derek has never, not once, done something normal in his life – up to the counter, eyebrows quirked in an expression Stiles has learned to mean ‘I’m amused, but what the fuck’.

It’s a good look on Derek. Fuck his life, everything’s a good look on Derek.

“Derek! Hey,” Stiles grins, acting for all the world he’s not losing feeling in his lower body. “What can I do you for, this fine morning?”

“It’s half three in the afternoon.”

“Ah,” Stiles points at him, “but it’s morning somewhere.”

Derek rolls his eyes, a smile playing at his lips. “Yeah, whatever. Caramel latte to go, please,” he says, like he ever gets anything else.

When Stiles turns his back to Derek, he doesn’t bother to hide his smile. Derek’s been a regular pretty much since this place opened and had barely one table, three years ago – he’s come in every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday at half three on the dot (which is – totally coincidentally, because Stiles isn’t weird like that – when he’s always scheduled to work. Well, and Fridays too, but it’s okay that Derek doesn’t come in that day because Erica works Fridays) and Stiles doesn’t think too hard about why he knows this, or why this is his favorite time of the day.

He spins around with a flourish (more like he tries to turn and basically trips over his own laces, but Derek’s polite enough not to mention that) and grabs a sharpie from the counter, writing ‘Derek :)’ on the paper cup, a soft brown with a pink (“peach.”) lid. “Here you go,” he grins, and his heart stutters a little when Derek smiles back.

Derek takes the cup from his hands, and Stiles will go to his grave believing the finger-brushing was on purpose.

“What’s this?” Derek asks, putting a few dollar bills on the counter and picking up the list the lady left before.

Stiles doesn’t bother trying to contain his eye roll. “Some demon lady from hell’s order. Wedding cake for Thursday. _Thursday._ Like, why can’t she just get to the point and ask me outright to die?”

Derek snorts, and it makes something between Stiles’ ribs flutter, pleased. When Derek first started coming here, he’d barely grind out his order, and now they have easy banter. They’re friends, Stiles thinks – good friends, actually, and if they’re never anything more he’ll be glad of their friendship.

“Wow,” Derek raises his eyebrows. “Sounds like a bitch.”

Stiles laughs. “She was, but it was either kill myself or let her go to Gerard’s for the order, which – you know. I’d rather die than admit defeat. So.”

Derek nods. He’s not just humoring Stiles – or at least, not completely. He hates Gerard just as much as Stiles does, if not more. The guy’s a dick. And Stiles has a lot of pride over _Lydia’s_ , even if the name leaves something to be desired.

“Well, I’d offer to help, but,” and Derek shrugs, and Stiles gets it. The one time he let Derek behind the kitchen (for baking only, unfortunately) did not end pretty. He thought Lydia would fire him for that one, for sure.

“Hey man, it’s cool. I’ll get it done, just pop a couple more Adderall.”

Derek looks unimpressed. “How about I take you for coffee on Thursday after work, instead?”

Stiles is pretty sure his heart stops a little. “Oh, dude, yeah. Sounds good. It’s a date. I mean, uh. Not, like, a date – well, Thursday does land on _a_ date, but it’s not like it’s a – you know what?” He cuts himself off. “I’ll see you Thursday.” He can close up a little early on Thursday. It’s usually pretty quiet, anyway. His cheeks feel a little hot.

Derek’s just grinning, and says, “see you Thursday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My [ tumblr](http://vanillawg.tumblr.com/)


	2. The Bakery Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have little to no working knowledge of bakeries. also, the cat is named shamelessly after my friends cat, idc.

“I should fire you,” Lydia says, perked on the counter. “Then you couldn’t even come in the back.”

“Trust me, _nothing_ will ever stop me from coming in the back, if you catch my drift.”

Lydia scrunches her nose, and Erica throws her head back and laughs. “Figure that won’t be the only thing I’d catch off you, Stilinski,” Erica grins.

“I should fire both of you,” Lydia mutters, and hops off the counter. “Anyway, there’s a perfectly functional coffee machine in the kitchen. Why are you using this one? We have customers.”

They don’t have customers. They opened up less than an hour ago, and the only person to come in was Allison, like she does every morning.

“I could use that one,” Stiles starts, adding vanilla syrup to his coffee, “but I’m pretty sure you dragged that coffee machine from your grandma’s lake house. Your _dead_ grandmother, Lydia. It’s not right. It burns all the coffee, anyway.”

“You burn the coffee anyway.”

“I resent that.”

It’s Wednesday, and he never works Wednesdays – not at the bakery at least, usually spends these days hunched over some French novel or something – but this wedding cake is breaking his back. He has standards, a reputation, and he’s not going to throw that just because this cake is a little short notice.

(Lydia had rolled her eyes and said, “we can do this. There are multiple people that work here,” but Stiles would die before he admitted defeat.)

The bell chimes and a group of tired looking students come in. It’s May, almost June, which means high school students are doing their finals – it’s great for business, don’t get him wrong, but Stiles fucking hates students. They always order one really weird drink and take up a table for the whole day, not bothering with refills.

He grins. It’s Wednesday, and he never works Wednesdays. “Well, that looks like my cue. Have fun with the kiddies!”

As he walks into the kitchen he hears Lydia groan loudly, and Erica laughing.

Stiles has spent a long time perfecting his icing. He remembers being five and decorating his cupcakes with shitty roses with his mom, and after she died he kept at it, practised and practised until his efforts paid off. It’s not a matter of being modest, it’s a matter of being honest – he’s good at what he does, and he loves it. It’s cathartic, and he can lose himself so easily in the delicacies of it – it’s rewarding.

The kitchen isn’t little, but it’s nothing impressive – it’s softly lit, and there’s an island in the middle where Stiles and Boyd handle the larger commissions, and cheap, mint-coloured counters lining the walls. The counter by the door is covered in anything not bakery related – there’s a microwave, which Erica and Stiles use to nuke hot pockets, and the shitty little coffee machine that grinds and whirs when you so much as look at it. It’s littered in sheets of paper and envelopes – orders, bills, and a few ‘thank you!’ cards from weddings and birthdays that Lydia hasn’t gotten around to sticking up yet. The rest of the counters, broken by a fridge freezer and a sink, were clean when Stiles came in a few hours before opening but are now covered in bowls and flour and sugar and design ideas and cooling trays from today’s produce that he hasn’t put away yet. He’d made the base cakes after work yesterday and sealed them – the room is cooled, so the cakes remain fresh.

He’s fumbling with a few ideas for the cake – the lady wasn’t very specific – but the wedding is on June 1st so he thinks he’s going to go with something spring-themed, light and pink and floral.

It’s cathartic, and he _does_ lose himself in it until Erica smacks him over the head and almost makes him ruin one of the flowers (a daffodil, because he’s like, almost certain those are spring flowers).

“What the fuck, Erica?” He grouches, but she just points to the clock, and – oh. It’s past midday, and he’s been at it for a few hours now.

“Oh,” he says, and she says, “yeah. Oh.”

She kicks him out, even though he tells her “I’m pretty sure you’re not the owner of this place.”

(She just laughed at him, and told him to come back after closing, “this is still a business.” Which, yeah, understandable – the kitchen isn’t _small_ , but Stiles tends to take up a lot of space.)

He goes home, a crappy little apartment that he has to practically break into every time. The door sticks, the locks are rusty – but it’s home.

It’s _cozy,_ not small, no matter what Lydia says, and he’s made it his space. There’s a comfy couch his old neighbor gave him when she moved out – and it’s ugly, honestly, a gauche brown thing he’s pretty sure hasn’t been washed since the 50’s – and a working TV and a working Xbox, so it’s good enough.

He has a cat, too – called Keith, a rescue Scott guilted him into adopting – a mean little ginger thing that likes to curl up against his thigh when he’s watching TV or gaming (until he gets bored, then he likes to maul Stiles. He’s a dick of a cat).

The wall opposite the front door is mostly window, and even though it just looks down on a car park (host to the occasional gang war, if you consider girl scouts gangs – which Stiles does) it lets a lot of light in, and Stiles has an old, round table that he works on, soaking in the natural light.

He curls over the manuscripts – Polish, this time, which he’s grateful for – chewing on his pen, stretching every now and then and cringing at the loud clicks his back makes. It’s slow going, even if Polish is his second language, and he’s not feeling up to it. Keith is asleep on the couch in a food coma, and he doesn’t want to wake him up by playing something. Stiles knows that Scott’s too busy at the vets to hang out, and though he knows Derek works as well, he does _own_ his own studio, and it’s not like he lets customers in the studio, so…

He shoots Derek a text, asking to hang out, and doesn’t think too hard about how quick the response is. He grins, instead, and dares to pat Keith quickly on the head before quietly closing the door behind him.


	3. Buttercream me up, sunshine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel this one is more about the pining than anything else. the writing style feels different from the previous chapters but falls somewhere between them and the other fics i've been writing, which is -- good? that's sort of the point of this fic. to, like, settle into my own writing. either way, i hope you enjoy. <3

Derek’s studio is a ten minute drive from Stiles’ apartment, but it’s warm and sunny out and Stiles wants to walk.

It’s on the outskirts of Beacon Hills, which isn’t a very big town to begin with, in an old, converted fire station. It’s scarcely decorated, and a little cold, but Derek pushed the couch so it catches the light from the windows (and Stiles doesn’t want to hope that Derek moved it for Stiles’ benefit, except that he does want and he does hope). The studio is large and spacious, and always smells like wood chips and dust. Derek usually leaves the front door cracked open, so when Stiles walks in he’s working, carving out the legs of a table.

Derek’s a carpenter, and usually works with larger, bulkier items like tables and chairs and bookcases, but Stiles has seen the smaller, more delicate things he makes with the leftover wood, little carvings of wolves and puzzle boxes.

The radio is playing in the background, loud enough to be heard over the saw – some pop tune he’s heard a thousand times over and knows Derek secretly loves – and he doesn’t feel the need to announce himself, so he just sprawls over the couch and watches Derek. Derek’s expecting him, and probably knows he’s there anyway – he has some weird sixth sense thing – so he settles in, propping his chin in the cup of his hand.

Derek’s beautiful like this, and it’s not just the sleeveless top he wears, muscles flexing, or the sweat covering his skin (which, frankly, Stiles wants to lick). It’s his face, caught in concentration, and to anyone else he might look tense, but not to Stiles – Stiles knows his faces, even hidden behind a dust mask. Knows when he’s uncomfortable or comfortable, tense or relaxed, and this, here – this may be a different face from the one he wears to the bakery nowadays, but it’s not unfamiliar. It’s one he knows anyway. Knows that when Derek gets like this, looks like that, he could be there for hours. He loves what he does, and Stiles can see it in all the lines of his face, his body. He’s beautiful like this.

Stiles finds his relaxation in decorating cakes. Derek finds his in cutting shit up with a saw.

He doesn’t realize he drifts off until Derek shakes him awake, and when he checks his phone Stiles finds a few hours have passed.

“Sorry,” Stiles smiles sheepishly, and Derek says, “it’s fine.”

Stiles groans and sits up, cracking his back and smirking at Derek’s wince. “What are you working on?” he asks, and Derek straightens. He walks to a little section of the studio, half hidden behind a wall, and Stiles hears metal clinking. That corner serves as a sort of kitchen – kitchen, meaning a sink, stove and a cheap kettle Stiles is pretty sure has been around since the dinosaurs.

“I’m experimenting,” Derek calls over the sound of water running, and Stiles has to bite his tongue before he says, “boy, I sure hope so.”

“Someone wanted a table to give to their grandmother for her birthday, and I figured it would be cool to try out some new ideas. I tried mixing the casting resin with luminescent powder, so it should-”

“Glow in the dark,” Stiles grins. “Are you doing this just to be, like, extra nice?” Derek has a soft spot for old people, which is just disgustingly sweet. Derek comes back, and Stiles shifts on the couch so Derek can sit by him.

Derek shrugs. “I figure if she doesn’t like it, she’ll be dead soon enough anyway.”

Stiles’ face drops, and Derek laughs. It’s a beautiful sound, and it’s only when it echoes around the studio that Stiles realizes the radio isn’t playing any more. They sit there, looking at each other for a long moment. Stiles thinks about how his back hurts – he fell asleep really awkwardly, fuck – and resolutely not about Derek’s smile, or the way the lines by his eyes crinkle, or how he’s sitting a little too close for a couch this long.

The sun isn’t dimming, not this late in May, but the light is broken up and scatters – the blinds have been drawn, and Stiles knows Derek broke them so only a few blinds actually remain so that he can still get the natural light without irritating his eyes when it gets a little too bright – and the smell of wood and dust has long settled, still there but muted and old. Derek must have stopped working a while ago. With all that Stiles knows about Derek, he knows it’s probably because he didn’t want to wake Stiles up, and he doesn’t know what breaks his heart more – the fact that Derek would do that, or the fact that he knows Derek would do that.

Either way, it leaves an ache that he can taste.

The kettle screams, breaking them out of… whatever they were in, and Stiles jumps and looks away guiltily. Derek goes back to the kitchen.

Stiles’… _crush,_ is usually just that – a crush, controllable when they’re in the bakery, because at least there they have the counter and the money and the other customers to separate them, but when Stiles is in Derek’s studio or Derek is in Stiles’ apartment, scratching Keith’s head and never getting mauled, Stiles loses that degree of separation, of control, and it almost hurts to be in these places that feel so private with Derek.

Derek comes back, holding two mugs of coffee – and they’re not even mugs, not really, more like two tins, and Stiles knows how they look strapped to a backpack on a hike, silly and old fashioned and a little too hot in the palms of his hands. He hates that he knows that. That’s a lie – he loves that he knows that. Just hates how his stupid heart skips when he thinks about it.

They drink, and they talk, and they laugh when Stiles burns his tongue when he drinks a bit too enthusiastically – seriously, that kettle is a fucking health hazard, how does it taste better than all the coffee Stiles makes? – and when they’re done Stiles tries to hide a yawn.

Derek smiles, a little too softly, and asks, “do you want a lift home?”

And Stiles smiles, a little too honestly, and says, “nah, I need to finish off this cake. Give me a lift to the bakery?”


	4. Cream pie, anyone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: there's no way i can get 1k. i'm not feeling it.  
> also me: is forced to cut the chapter in two because i hit 1k too soon.  
> whatever.

Lydia slams open the door to the kitchen, muttering under her breath and already tying her apron and screams when she sees Stiles.

“Woah, hey now,” he groans around the straw shoved in his coffee cup (and the part of him that would usually be disgusted by this is long dead and Stiles killed it). “Just me.”

Lydia glares, and pulls angrily at the knot she made and redoing it (and, seriously – she always makes those knots into these perfect bows. Stiles is sure witchcraft is involved somehow, and that scares him). “Do you have _any_ idea what time it is?” She snaps.

Stiles rolls his eyes, lowering the fifth tier into a plastic box and sealing the lid. Of course he knows what the time is. He’s only been here for a few – oh.

“Oh,” he says, because when he checks his phone it’s half six in the morning.

“Yeah,” Lydia clicks her tongue. “ _Oh_.”

Stiles stretches up, back twinging and clicking, and he winces. Fuck, but that hurts.

“Well,” he says, throwing his arms out. “I finished the cake!” And Lydia offers him one of her rare, real smiles, and says, “send pictures when you assemble it,” and he promises he will.

The break room is small; there’s a coffee table, stained and scratched, taking up most of the room, and behind it is a plush pink (“peach.”) sofa Lydia got delivered from some fancy, retro store from San Francisco, and to the side of the room are the lockers (Stiles’ is covered in DC stickers and an old, dog-eared Pulp Fiction poster) and a rack of aprons.

Stiles unties his apron (much less diligently tied than Lydia’s – it just needs a knot in the back, it’s not a fucking catwalk) and yawns, stretching and clicking his neck. It hits him, then, how tired he really is – he popped an extra Adderall the night before so he could focus on the cakes, and he’s probably fucked his schedule up quite badly, but whatever. The cake is done.

He crashes on the couch, and it’s only when he’s half asleep that he realizes it’s Thursday, which means two things:

1) Only Stiles works on Thursdays, and,

2) Derek comes in on Thursdays.

Then he _really_ realizes it’s Thursday, and what that  _really_ means.

Stiles jumps off the couch like it’s on fire, chanting “oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck” under his breath as he grabs at his phone, already calling Derek as he throws open his locker (and winces slightly at the _crash-bang_ of it).

 _“Stiles?”_ Derek says, voice broken and husky like he’s just woken up, and God what a sight that must be.

Stiles slams the locker shut, dry swallowing the Adderall (he’s taken to keeping some at the bakery, because unfortunately this is not the first time he’s accidentally pulled an all-nighter). “Heeey Derek.” He heads to the front, grabbing a paper cup and hitting buttons on the machine. “So, about that date – uh, about that outing for coffee. Two friends going out for coffee. About that.” The Adderall is a lie. He is no more focused with it. “Can’t do it. No can do.”

There’s silence for a few moments. Then, _“oh,”_ and Stiles must be imagining the disappointment in Derek’s voice. Phones. They’re terrible at picking up vocal expressions.

Stiles flails, almost dropping his phone. “No no no. That’s not what I meant. I mean, yeah. It is. But it’s not.”

_“…okay?”_

“I need your van.”

_“You need my van.”_

“No, well – I need you. In the van. The delivery! The cake for the demon woman.”

 _“Stiles,”_ Derek says, patient as always. _“Start that again.”_

Stiles takes a deep breath, willing the coffee machine to work faster through sheer force of his glare. It does not work faster. “I need to borrow your van to deliver the wedding cake to the demon lady from Hell, but I am both tired and more alive than I’ve ever felt at the same time and I don’t want to drive, so do you think you could come by the bakery and pick me up?”

He hears Derek sigh, or maybe chuckle – phones, seriously.

_“How soon?”_

“Uh,” Stiles checks the wall-mounted clock. “Like, now?”

Stiles has been to Derek’s apartment before, and it’s at least a ten minute drive from the bakery. Derek’s there in five, and Stiles could marry him.

“Oh my God, God bless you man,” Stiles cries out when Derek walks in (or, stalks – because again, Derek and normal are not friends).

(Allison, who doesn’t appreciate the fact that she gets to wake up late, is already there, and she raises her eyebrows and drawls out an “oooookay”, but she doesn’t get to judge because she leaves clutching her half-and-half-no-added-sugar-iced-chai-macchiato, which isn’t so much of a drink as it is a fucking potion.)

Derek rolls his eyes, but Stiles is already shoving his caramel latte in his hand and jumps over the counter (something he is _so_ sad Lydia wasn’t here to capture, because he’s been fucking practicing that move and could cry because the only witness is Derek, which is like, you know, _ideal_ , but does Derek have a camera? Derek does not have a camera. No one will believe him now.)

“Oh fuck me,” Stiles says, because he needs to go back over the counter to get the actual cakes.

Derek’s looking a little pink, and Stiles continues, “I’ll be back in two seconds.”

One of the many, many things Stiles loves about Derek (and there’s a lot of things) is that, as a carpenter, he has a _van._ With empty space in the back. Stiles lays down a foam mat and straps down the cake boxes on top of it, and a small packet with the little pillars he’s assembling the cake with, and hops in front with Derek.

“Seriously dude, I cannot thank you enough for this. Like, if you ever need a favor, I’m here. I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” he babbles, and Derek’s knuckles look a little white where they’re gripping the steering wheel.

“Stiles,” Derek chokes. “It’s fine.”

Stiles pokes him in the side of the face. “You have no idea how much I love you.”


	5. Cake crashing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had like, five different title ideas for this chapter. and then i tried saying "is this gate crashing?" but words are hard and i said cake crashing instead.

“…why the Bakery Machine?”

Stiles stabs at the radio, changing the station to some tinny, pop music that Derek flinches at (but Stiles knows the truth. He knows.) but doesn’t comment on. “I feel like you’re not using the right intonation. You have to say it like it’s some block buster movie, like – the _Bakery Machine._ See those hand actions? You need the hand actions.”

“I’m driving.”

“Surely the _Bakery Machine,_ ” Stiles waves his hands about, “is worth dying over.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “What’s so special about,” they roll up to a red light and Derek waves his hands about – or, wiggles his fingers a little, but it’s close enough, “the _Bakery Machine_ though? It just sounds like a dumb name.”

Stiles gasps, clutches at his chest. “Take that back. It’s the best name – it’s like the Mystery Machine, except with like, cakes and shit.”

“And less mysteries. And less vans. You need a van.”

“Is this not a van?” Stiles knocks on the door. “Come on Derek, you and me. Give this thing a splash of paint and an oven and we’re set.”

Derek raises his eyebrows at him, clicking his tongue as the light turns green again. “You’re an idiot.”

Stiles grins. “Hey, the venue should be around here somewhere.” Derek slows the van down till they’re barely moving. They’re driving through a forest, quiet and private. The windows of the van are rolled down, letting in warm June air, and a slight breeze carrying sounds of birds chirping. It’s nice, and feels like they’re the only ones in the world at that moment. “Try down that road.”

“I don’t see a road there.”

“Do you-” Stiles leans over Derek, pointing through his window. “There!”

“That’s – Stiles, get off me – that’s not a road. That’s dirt.”

“A dirt road!”

Derek groans. “Fine, but if my van gets scratched you’re paying for repairs. Also, get off me.”

Stiles looks at Derek, and flinches when their noses almost brush against each other. He pulls his hand back from where it’s resting on Derek’s thigh like he’s being burnt and practically throws himself back into his seat.

“Uh,” he says, and Derek turns down the road.

It turns out the dirt _is_ a dirt road _is_ the right road, because after a few minutes of silence (comfortable silence, like the whole groping-your-leg thing was forgotten as soon as it happened, which is sweet and dangerous in equal measures) the trees open up into a small, secluded clearing. Here, the sun hits the trees and casts small, dancing shadows, making the clearing feel comfortable and not too bright. There’s a little stone church, barely enough of a building to be called one, with a stain glass window above the wooden doors. To the right of the church, there’s a couple gravestones. There’s one tree in the clearing; a large willow tree, leaves brushing a small pond to the side of it.

The clearing seems to mute the already quiet air, and as they drive the van a little closer to the church it feels for a moment as though no one has come here for a long, long time.

Only a moment, though, because as soon as they pull to the stop the demon lady from Hell is at Stiles’ window. He jumps, hand reaching out and grasping at Derek blindly.

“Hi,” she grins, all teeth. “Knew you’d make it. Come with me, I’ll show you where I want the cake.”

“What the fuck,” Stiles whispers when she steps away. “Where did she even come from? I didn’t see any other cars.”

“Maybe she just spawned here,” Derek says. “That pond? Is a Hellmouth.”

Stiles snorts. Then, “hey, you said you hadn’t watched Buffy when I asked!”

Derek shrugs. “You asked ages ago. I watched it after you mentioned it, and you never brought it up again.”

“You watched it because I mentioned it?” Derek shrugs again.

“Come on, get out. I think she’s trying to send us to Hell by glaring at us. I wouldn’t risk it.”

They grab the boxes from the back, and follow the lady. She turns primly and leads them towards the willow tree, where there’s a large, plastic table set up.

“We’re going to set the cake here,” she says. “Do you need help with setting up?”

“Well, actually-”

“Good. I’m going to sort the chairs out. Call if you need anything!” She says, in a way that says ‘I do not want to hear your voice, again, ever.’

Stiles turns to Derek. “She’s lovely. I wish all my customers were like her.” Derek huffs a laugh, and puts the boxes he’s carrying on the table.

“Cake’s not gonna assemble itself,” he says, and Stiles thinks about how that would work. A self-assembling cake. God, the bakery should really be his business, not Lydia’s.

Assembling the cake, while delicate work, isn’t the hardest thing in the world, and they’re done pretty quickly. Stiles takes a step back, admiring it. He’s proud of it – he worked really hard on it, and he thinks it paid off. It’s five tiers, each decorated with spring flowers and the base color getting progressively lighter until the fifth tier is a barely-there pink – more a soft, dusty flush than anything.

The bottom tier is the deepest pink, and decorated with lilac crocuses, and the top tier is decorated with delicate lily of the valleys – Stiles’ favorite flower, and probably the hardest to make into icing without it looking like a five year old did it. Between the two tiers, he’s put daffodils and tulips and bluebells and winter aconite. It took a long time, and he has no idea how he managed it in the time limit – but he did.

“That’s really good,” Derek smiles, and Stiles beams back.

“Thank you,” he breathes. He pulls out his phone, takes a picture of it.

The demon lady from Hell comes back, and whistles.

“That’s the best fucking cake I’ve ever seen,” she says. “Thank you. My sister’s going to love it.”

“This is your sister's wedding?” Stiles asks.

She looks a little surprised. “Yeah. She’s – look, our parents cancelled this morning. I don’t think they were ever planning on coming. They’re pretty militant on what a wedding should be, so – I mean, if you don’t have anywhere else to go-”

Derek raises a hand, cutting her off. “We’d love to,” he says, nudging Stiles when he doesn’t say anything.

“I – uh, yeah. That’d be,” he rubs the back of his head. “That’d be pretty cool, actually.”

The lady breathes out, smiling. “Thank you. Take a seat anywhere – on the left side though – and don’t fucking touch anything.” She spins on her heel and walks towards the church.

Stiles pouts. “She’s still a bitch. That was not a redemption arc, at all. I’m disappointed.”

Derek laughs, and grabs Stiles’ arm. “Come on,” he says, dragging them to a couple seats at the back.

The other guests arrive shortly after, but Stiles and Derek don’t try to talk to any of them. They just sit there, under the sun and in a cool breeze. When Stiles’ leg starts juddering, Derek puts his hand on his thigh, stilling his movements.

The brides kiss. Derek’s hand burns against Stiles’ thigh.


	6. Is that a cannoli in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the working title for this one was "time to go to church :)"

Stiles is jittery on the drive back. He runs through everything in his head.

Derek and he crashed a wedding. A gay wedding. Derek put his hand on Stiles’ thigh and didn’t move it.

Derek looks over at Stiles, and Stiles knows he’s been uncharacteristically quiet. The wind tussles Derek’s hair slightly, grown long enough now to curl slightly at the ends, and when Stiles smiles, small and quietly, Derek beams at him and turns back to the road.

A few minutes pass. Stiles flicks through the radio once, twice, before switching it off again. “That was nice,” he blurts. “I mean, the wedding. It was nice. Sweet. And the weather!” It’s like a dam has burst. “Lovely weather. I love June.”

He looks over at Derek, who’s smirking, biting down on his lip. “Oh, shut up,” Stiles says.

“What is wrong with you?” Derek asks, and Stiles doesn’t know his leg is bouncing until Derek puts his hand on it – _again_ – to still it.

“Uh,” Stiles says, intelligently. “Messed up my Adderall schedule?”

Derek gives him a look. “Are you asking me or telling me?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he grumbles again.

“My parents got married in June,” Derek offers after a moment, his hand still on Stiles’ leg like that’s a thing they’re doing now, and it feels more important than it probably is.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Derek nods. “It was horrible. A bee landed in my drink.”

And Stiles can’t help it – he laughs. It’s easy, with Derek. He makes it easy, not to forget how Stiles’ heart flutters a little every time he sees Derek, but easy to forget any awkwardness on Stiles’ part. It’s nice. Good – familiar.

“Did you cry?” Stiles asks, because he can’t say anything else.

Derek looks disgruntled. “It drowned. I was six.”

Stiles laughs again, and just like that the drive is no longer weird, quiet. Stiles lets himself think about the timbre of Derek’s laugh, the light making his eyes pale and bright. He knows Derek is not a social creature – he’s pretty sure outside of his family, Stiles is the only other number on his phone – but it’s easy to forget, when he’s with Derek.

Easy to forget, sitting out in the open of a clearing, on the first day of June, that they’re not in a private nook, only the two of them.

Stiles smiles.

“Ow, oh my God, what the fuck,” Stiles says, just over an hour later. They’re in the bakery – Stiles expected Derek to drop him off and go home, but Derek said “you owe me a pastry,” and brooked no argument – or, just outside the bakery.

Lydia opens the door, smirking. “I got glass doors,” she says, and Stiles says, _“I know.”_

“Holy shit, Lydia.” He rubs his forehead, pain ebbing through his head. “Why would you do that to me? How did you get them installed so quickly?” Derek kneels, grabbing at Stiles’ elbow and pulling him up from where he’s laying on the ground. Stiles tells himself Derek’s hand lingers to check he’s alright.

She rolls her eyes. “Boyd,” she says, like that explains it all, and it sort of does. Stiles had no idea Boyd knew how to install doors, but if something causes Stiles pain it’s either Boyd or Erica’s doing. “And I thought we should have more natural light. Plus,” she adds. “I knew you’d probably walk into it. And I was right. It was fantastic, thank you.” Stiles looks at her, and then looks at her hands, where – yep, where she’s holding her camera and a freshly printed picture.

“I hate you so much,” he says lowly, and she smiles sweetly at him.

Derek laughs, pushing Stiles into the bakery. “Pastry, Stiles,” he says.

“Right. Let me get my wallet from my locker.” He stopped keeping his wallet in his back pocket when he’s baking – not after last time. He shudders. “Grab what you want.”

Erica’s in the break room, sprawled across the sofa. She looks up at him, bored, and flicks something at him.

“Oh, what the fuck,” he says, grasping at his face and pulling away a picture of… Keith? “How did you – did you break into my apartment again?”

She shrugs. “I am covering your shift, so I can break into your apartment if I want.”

“You – Erica, this picture is from, like, ages ago. It’s raining. You can see the rain. How many times have you broken into my apartment?” Erica just grins. “You’re morally corrupt.” He slams open his locker, and it sounds a little louder than usual when it clangs against the other lockers. “My life is terrible right now.”

“What’s up?” Erica asks, but she doesn’t sound particularly concerned. He just rolls his eyes and shrugs, waving his hand about like it explains everything. By Erica’s nod, it does.

When he comes back up front, opening the register and shoving a few dollars in, Derek’s resting his hip against the counter, halfway through a cannoli. Stiles isn’t sure who it reflects more on that Derek looks hot even shoving a cannoli in his – and, yep, cutting that thought off.

Wordlessly, Derek passes him a cannoli too, and they just stand there, on opposite sides of the counter, stuffing their faces full of cannoli.

Stiles isn’t particularly hungry, doesn’t feel like he can hold the pastry down for how on edge he feels – and fuck him for ruining his Adderall schedule – but he knows if he doesn’t eat now he’ll feel even worse. Derek knows this – this isn’t the first time Stiles has done this, and it won’t be the last – and it warms something deep inside Stiles that he gave Stiles food. A simple gesture, and would just look like good manners any other time, but. Stiles knows Derek, and Stiles is guessing the attentive look Derek’s giving him now is to check he’s eating, not because he looks hot with cream spilling out his – yeah, no. Cut off. No thought processes will survive today.

“You have a little,” Stiles points at Derek’s face when they’re done, “yeah, no. To the-” he brings his hand up closer to Derek’s face before pulling it away. “Yeah, got it.”

“These things are so messy,” Derek grumbles, and Stiles laughs.

“No, dude, you’re just really bad at eating them.”

He grabs a napkin and thrusts it at Derek, taking one for himself.

“Do you want a lift home?” Derek asks, after a moment, and Stiles stretches, back clicking.

“Nah,” he says. “Are you going back to the studio? I’ll fall asleep if I go home.”

“You fall asleep at the studio all the time.”

“Eh,” Stiles waves his hand about. “You can wake me up if I do.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Whatever, Stiles.” He pushes back from the counter and looks outside for a moment, before turning back to Stiles. “Sure,” he says.


	7. Just a little, oh, little slice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why have people been keeping hozier from me?? why did no one tell me he was this good????  
> also, like i mentioned in the first chapter or whatever, this is an ongoing series that i'm writing daily -- so if there's anything you'd like to see, let me know and i'll see what i can do!!!

Derek doesn’t wake Stiles up.

Stiles wakes Stiles up – or, he remembers something in his dream and flails hard enough to throw himself off the couch.

Derek looks up at the crash, but rolls his eyes and goes back to sanding.

“Derek!” Stiles cries. “It’s Thursday!”

“Yes,” Derek says, putting down the belt sander.

“I mean,” Stiles pulls himself up into a stand. “It’s still Thursday!”

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Coffee!”

Derek frowns. “What?”

“You-” Stiles walks towards Derek but trips over a toolbox, waving his arms about. Derek grabs his elbow and pulls him upright, muttering something about “hurting yourself.”

“You asked me to coffee on Thursday. On Tuesday, but to… for Thursday. And today is Thursday.”

Derek is smirking now, biting his lip and Stiles knows he’s trying not to laugh. Asshole. This isn’t funny – this is important. Like, friendship, or whatever.

“We had coffee at the bakery,” Derek points out.

Stiles throws his arms up in the air. “It doesn’t count! That was thanks for me dragging you off to a wedding. It’s my place of work. This was supposed to be a date. Between friends. A platonic – an outing! For coffee.”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “An outing for coffee.” He shrugs, rolling his shoulders, and Stiles tries his hardest not to stare (but Stiles is not a strong man, not when it comes to those shoulders. He stares, and may drool a little). “Alright. Let me change my shirt and we’ll go.” And he just… pulls off his shirt, that stupid white sleeveless thing Stiles knows he buys in bulk. Just takes it off right there.

Stiles must stand there for a bit, something close to brain dead, because Derek is holding his arm and looking at him, amused. “You alright there?” Derek asks, and Stiles says, “fucking peachy. Let’s go. Your treat.”

“I’ll pay with your money.”

“Ass. Friendship is dead. I take it back. No coffee. Goodbye forever.”

Derek laughs and holds the door open – he’s wearing a charcoal grey henley that’s a few sizes too small, probably, but Stiles is okay with that – and rests a hand on Stiles’ back.

So.

So the touching becomes a thing that they do. Derek drops his hand when they walk out, but they walk close enough that their arms brush every few steps. At the coffee shop – a little hipster thing that opened up and maybe underestimated exactly how retro and vegan everyone in Beacon Hills aspired to be, because there’s usually a line outside the shop, though Stiles guesses everyone is in an exam or at the library, because it’s pretty sparse but for an older couple sitting in one corner – Derek holds the door open again and puts his hand on Stiles’ back again, but this time he keeps it there as they walk up to the counter. Keeps his hand there when they order their drinks – a vanilla and caramel latte, because what else would they ever get? – and keeps his hand there when he laughs at Stiles asking, “what the fuck do they put in lattes in a vegan coffee shop?” and said “it’s not vegan,” but it totally is.

He only takes his hand off Stiles to get his wallet out and pay for their drinks, which had Stiles grinning stupidly even if he didn’t replace his hand.

The coffee shop is nice, in a try-hard sort of way. The walls are bare brick and covered in minimalist, weird looking art and vinyls, a string of paper lanterns across all the walls (and Stiles had no idea you could get strings of paper lanterns that long). The floor is old, dark wood, and Stiles thinks it may be the original wood from the building but Derek scoffs at the floor so it’s probably just decorated to look old, and the tables are small and round, old and precarious looking, the chairs mismatched and tall. In two of the corners of the shop, there are sofas and matching arm chairs, a low coffee table between them – in one corner, they’re the colour of strawberry candy, and in the other they’re toffee. The sofas are leather – fake, probably, because this place is definitely vegan, no matter what they say – and cracked, with deep butt indents, but comfy looking.

The baristas look just as vegan-friendly as the shop, wearing ugly sweaters and too-big ripped jeans, with their faces heavily pierced and arms and hands heavily tattooed, hair bleached and cut in weird and wonderful colors and styles.

It’s… nice, though makes him feel old. The baristas look like they left high school, went to the tattoo parlor, and then came straight here, and even though the old couple in the with the strawberry sofas must be at least eighty, the vibe is young. Like, Stiles is only twenty-five, and Derek thirty-two, but God he feels fucking ancient.

“Who’s playing on the speakers?” He hisses to Derek when they’re sitting in the toffee corner (and if they’re sitting a little close together on the sofa, Stiles isn’t going to complain about it). The song is acoustic, and a bit shit, but the baristas seem to love it for all they’re nodding and tapping along.

Derek just laughs, shakes his head.

Stiles sips his coffee. “Oh, fuck me, what is this,” he chokes. Derek laughs harder.

“Hazelnut milk,” he says, and Stiles slaps his arm.

“I thought you said this place wasn’t vegan!” He whisper-yells. Derek just shrugs. “You have betrayed me on this day, Derek. I’m not happy about this. This is disgusting. I’m going to ask them for more vanilla syrup.” He goes to stand, but Derek wraps his hand around Stiles’ wrist and pulls him back down, so their thighs are pressed against each other. Stiles wants to choke, but he can’t even breathe enough for that.

“Try mine,” Derek says. “You’ll rot your teeth out.”

“You’ll rot your teeth out,” Stiles snipes halfheartedly, but he takes a sip from Derek’s cup anyway. “This is just as – oh, God, what the fuck,” he moans. “This is delicious. This is a whole other drink. What did they put in this?” He clutches the mug close to his chest. “You’ll have to suffer through the hazelnut. This is mine now. God, is this what a caramel latte usually tastes like? Why have you been keeping this from me?”

Derek smirks, doesn’t say anything. Drinks from Stiles’ mug.


	8. Extra cream, please.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is later than usual!! it's still today tho :D nah but serious, i just started school again so i'll still update everyday!! but it'll be later on in the day probably.

Stiles is jittery when he gets home, and a little sweaty – he’d walked, to try and get rid of some of his pent-up energy. It’s still Thursday, and even though it’s starting to cool down a little as it slips into evening, it’s still June and it’s still California. Stiles was never well adapted to the heat, and consistently drinking hot drinks is probably not the greatest idea.

He considers moving to somewhere cold – Alaska, maybe, and he can get into sled dog racing – as he unlocks the door. Immediately, Keith is curled around his feet.

“Hey baby,” Stiles grins, going to pick him up. Keith jumps back, hissing at Stiles and rushing off somewhere. Stiles pouts. “Nice to see you too. Bastard.”

He drops his keys in the bowl in the kitchen – a dingy little thing, with not much more than a bit of counter space, a fridge and stove. He has to wash his dishes in the bathroom, it’s not dignified – and toes off his shoes. He’s exhausted, and a little grouchy – it’s hot, and his Adderall is still messed up. It’s weird, because when he’s in a bad mood he’s in a bad mood, but with Derek it was nothing like that at all.

Stiles presses the back of his hand to his mouth, smiling stupidly, remembering the heat of Derek’s hand against his back, how easily Derek had given up his drink for Stiles. Maybe it’s not quite the way Stiles wants it to be, what he holds out hope for, but he really does love their relationship. Sometimes Derek is quiet – a lot, actually – but with Stiles his quiet is relaxed, a small and peaceful thing, and he’s content to let Stiles ramble on.

He loves their banter, the jibs and the snarking, and he loves most of all when they’re comfortable in each other’s spaces, when Stiles gets to watch Derek create tables and chairs and shelves, and when he gets to see the other little things Derek doesn’t let anyone else see, the small carved wolves and the puzzle boxes. Even the bowl sitting on Stiles’ kitchen counter was made by Derek because he’s always losing his keys – shallow and small and painted muted oranges and yellows and pinks (and Derek won’t say it even if he asked, but Stiles knows why it’s those colors. They’d gone on a hike around this time last year – stupidly early, but Stiles was never very good at saying no to Derek when he asks for something, which is not very often at all, actually – and sat on the rocks at the end of the trail, on the overhang, looking out onto the whole of Beacon Hills. The sun had risen as they sat there, drinking from those stupid enamel mugs, and a week later Derek had given Stiles the bowl. It’s one of his favorite possessions, and one of his favorite memories).

Even with the extra energy running under his skin, Stiles is tired. He wants nothing more than coffee, but figures if he doesn’t by the time he’s coming down from the Adderall he should be ready for bed at a decent time. So he rolls his shoulders, grabbing a glass and filling it with water, and sits down at the table, where there are still papers strewn about.

After a few hours, he’s got the next chapter of this Polish book down in English – and both the book and his translation are covered in rough scrawls of notation and bright pink post-it notes – and it’s dark enough that he’s made to switch on the lamp. He has no idea where the lamp came from, some ugly pea green thing, but it works and it’s bright. Stiles doesn’t bother closing the curtains – who’s looking into his apartment? Girl scouts?

Keith kneads at his thigh, and Stiles absently scratches between his ears. Surprisingly, Keith lets him.

“You hungry, buddy?” Stiles asks. Keith prefers the taste of fresh bird and fresh mouse to any of the cat food Stiles buys him, but when he’s not in the mood and Stiles isn’t around he’ll usually bug Stiles’ next door neighbor – some perky college girl called Katie or Keyleth or something – so Stiles isn’t too worried that Keith’s actually, like, starving, but he’s a greedy fuck.

Keith meows loudly, and Stiles stands up, wincing as his back clicks. “Yeah, alright,” he says. “I’m probably done here tonight, anyway.”

He watches TV for a while – and apparently letting Stiles scratch his head was enough affection for him today, because Keith has slinked off God knows where – but exhaustion gets the better of him.

His bedroom is pretty bare, furniture-wise – there’s a bed and a bedside table and a dresser – but the walls are covered in photos and book-ladden shelves and posters he’s collected over the years.

Stiles’ head hits the pillow, and he passes out quickly.

He wakes up the next morning to three texts: one from Lydia, one from Derek, and one from Scott.

Stiles opens the one from Lydia first.

**> >Don’t come in. Boyd’s covering for you x**

He shoots back a quick reply.

**< <Don’t miss me too much!**

Scott is next. He likes to save Derek’s texts for last, and doesn’t even bother to pretend not to know why.

**> >I’ve got the day free! Lydia says you’re not working so you have to come out with me and Allison. No third wheeling just bros broing it out with a girl bro. Come on, bro**

**< <Fine. But I want to bring someone. What are we doing?**

A few minutes pass. Stiles goes to the bathroom and brushes his teeth.

**> >Yes!!!! And that’s ok. We’re just gonna chill because it’s nice weather today. Walk in the park, movie and probably go to Bee’s or whatever, what we feel like doing. Been too long since we’ve hung out!! :) **

**> >I’ll be round yours at 10ish so be ready we’ll hit the park first**

Stiles, guiltily, knows Scott is right. They text and call and play video games all the time, but they don’t see each other as much as he’d like. Scott’s busy at the vets and at school – working towards his doctorate, and who the fuck knows how Scott is a PhD student, but Stiles is proud anyway – and Stiles’ life pretty much consists of the bakery and translating shit into different languages. Stiles is startlingly aware that he’s hung out with Derek more than Scott recently, but he figures it’s fair if Scott’s hanging out with Allison. Not that their hanging is the same thing, but – oh, whatever.

He opens Derek’s text last. There’s an image attached, of the table he’s been working on – the glow in the dark one – and no message.

**< <!!!!! That’s amazing oh my God. How much do yet you to make me one?**

**< <**to**

His reply is instant.

**> >Thanks. And I’d make you one for free.**

Stiles’ heart doesn’t flutter.

**< <You’re too sweet. Want to hang out with Scott and Allison today? Unless you’re busy.**

**> >No, that’s fine. Where?**

**< <Meet us at the park around 10, by the entrance probably.**

**> >See you there.**

**< <:))))**


	9. Is that a cone in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school can get fucked omw  
> also there's like a scene in here that i really didn't want to include but then i did but now i'm thinking maybe it's too subtle to pick up on what happened? so i'll defo come back to that at some point.

They get to the park around ten-thirty. Because Stiles doesn’t think he and Scott have ever got anywhere promptly.

They spent a worrying amount of time hugging (and Stiles hadn’t even been able to close the front door when Scott wrapped his arms around Stiles, and he’s pretty sure college-girl-across-the-hall thinks they’re in some sort of long distance relationship), and sat on the couch, Keith between them (between them, meaning on Scott’s lap and ignoring Stiles) talking about random shit. How’s the vet, college, the bakery, Stiles’ one-sided love affair with Derek – and he’s really glad for Scott, because if Stiles couldn’t tell anyone about Derek he’d probably explode.

Then he was a little less grateful, because when Allison texted Scott to hurry up (she’d stranded herself outside to give them ‘bro-time’) they’d rushed downstairs and she’d immediately asked him how it was going with Derek.

Stiles had punched Scott in the arm, saying, “what the hell, dude?” and Allison had laughed.

So. They get to the park around ten-thirty, and Derek is already there, wiping his hands down with a tissue.

“Oh my God, dude, I’m so sorry,” Stiles rushes. “Have you been here long? Was it too hot? Why did you stand out in the sun, there’s trees! Trees that provide shade!”

Derek is starting to look a little red. He must have been here for a while. He looks like he’s swallowing a lemon before choking out the words, “it’s fine. I haven’t been here long.” Stiles frowns.

Allison frowns too, and says, “you do look a little hot, Derek, maybe we should get some ice cream? Find some shade?” because Allison is an angel.

Also, Stiles thoroughly agrees. He does look a little hot, with an olive t-shirt and too-tight jeans and Stiles is _wheezing._

“We don’t need to get ice cream,” Derek says, low and quick.

Allison rolls her eyes. “I want ice cream. Come on,” and, well… they just follow her. Because that’s who Allison is. An angel, maybe, but her questions are rarely more than thinly veiled commands.

Allison is a few feet in front of them, basically marching, and Scott is tumbling behind her, leaving Stiles and Derek in the back. Stiles is not thinking about how similar this is to a double date. He’s not – it’s not, so he’s not.

Derek is staring resolutely at the ground, the tips of his ears growing redder by the second.

“Dude,” Stiles says, punching Derek in the arm. “What is up with you? I mean, you usually tan pretty well-” unlike Stiles, who likes to do his best impression of a boiled lobster, “-but you’re a little bit,” he waves his hand around his ear. Derek’s hand twitches, but he doesn’t react.

“It’s… hot,” Derek finally says, sounding like he’s suffocating on the words.

“You don’t have sunscreen?”

“I’ve never needed it before,” and Derek almost looks bashful. “It’s nothing, Stiles.”

Stiles tears his eyes away from Derek, to where Scott and Allison are waiting for them a little further down the path. The ice cream cart is behind them, a red and pink monstrosity. Stiles winces.

“It looks like Cora tried to paint it,” Derek mutters darkly next to him, and Stiles laughs.

“She is _not_ that bad at art,” Stiles says, and Derek gives him a hard look.

Allison is staring at Stiles, face unreadable. “You guys are slow walkers,” she says, and turns to the cart.

Stiles is already tugging out his wallet, shoving at Derek’s hands when he goes for his. “No no no,” he smiles. “This is for the coffee.”

Derek looks away.

The cart owner is staring at Derek, unimpressed and raised-eyebrows. Derek catches his eye and flushes a dark red. Stiles looks between the two, brows drawing together.

“Ooo _kay_ ,” he drawls, and buys the ice cream for him and Derek.

They make their way to the shade of a large tree, near the pond but distant enough from the other people. They sit with their backs against the tree – and Derek is pressed against Stiles’ side, a hot line – facing away from the pond but catching the cooler air around it, and in front of them is a massive green clearing. There’s only a couple other people, on the opposite side of the clearing, throwing frisbees and tennis balls for their dogs. It’s pretty great, Stiles thinks, when a tennis ball falls next to them and the dog – a golden retriever, tongue lolling – jumps on the ball first, and then on them, licking at their faces. It seems to like Scott the most, because it drops the ball in his lap and falls to its hind legs, panting excitedly.

Scott laughs, standing up with the ball in hand. He throws it as hard as he can, and – _wow_ , those extra gym sessions must be passing off.

The ball passes clear over the owner, who was making her way over to them – she’s an older woman, walking slowly and discreetly. Stiles hadn’t even noticed her. She laughs loud and airily, resting her hands on her knees. Scott comes up to her, resting a hand on her back.

“Would you like us to play with your dog while you rest?” He asks, and with all the anxiety in his voice Stiles would think the woman was his grandmother or something.

She grins blindingly at him. “What a lovely boy,” she says. She heads back across the clearing, and Scott gestures to Allison, who smiles and jumps up enthusiastically.

“Stay out of trouble,” she points at Stiles. Stiles scoffs, and Derek laughs.

“I never get into trouble!” He complains, but she’s already gone. He turns to Derek, and makes his voice low and gravelly. _“I am the danger.”_

Derek’s still looking a little pink. “Hey man, do you need some sunscreen? Seriously, I packed some. My Polish blood was never made for the sun, so.” He’s already rooting through his bag – he always takes it with him when it’s hottest, because he’s the only one with foresight for this kind of thing, packing water and sunscreen and shit, but he’s also been the only one with any real trouble with the sun – when Derek places a firm hand on his arm.

“Stiles,” he says, “really. It’s fine.” Stiles shakes his head, sunscreen in hand. He squeezes it onto his hand.

“Come here, sugarplum,” he says, reaching for Derek’s face. Derek looks horrified, eyes wide, and he grabs at Stiles’ wrists, leaning back.

“Seriously,” he warns, but Stiles is grinning at him, almost crawling into his lap to shove the sunscreen on his face.

They struggle for a bit, Stiles pushing insistently towards Derek, and Derek leaning further and further back, until he leans a little too far and throws a hand down to catch himself, the other still on Stiles. Stiles smiles toothily, and uses his free hand to shove at Derek’s face, smearing the sunscreen on.

“It’s there now,” Stiles breathes, because he’s basically on top of Derek. “May as well finish the job.”


	10. Sweet (bread) on you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my lord ok so  
> 1) i really hate the last chapter so i'll probably edit that over the weekend when i have time  
> 2) i am??? so sorry about last chapter. i didn't think i was as ambiguous as i apparently was, but you guys will be SO disappointed when i say what that was all about. it's really not that cool :(  
> 3) this chapter is probably a bit jarg because i'm literally falling asleep rn but whatever! it is done?

They don’t stay in the park much longer after that.

Derek grouches for a bit (“you got it on my sunglasses, Stiles,” right when Scott and Allison, grinning and sweating, came back. Scott had done a double take, saying “what did you get on his glasses!?” and Allison had laughed, the cruel bitch) and Stiles had gotten fidgety. He pissed Allison off, because she dragged him up and said “we’re going shopping.”

So, they leave the park and head to the mall. Stiles is glad for it, really, because he was getting antsy just sitting there and at least in the mall he’s not going to burn, so he doesn’t have to avoid the sun.

Allison drags them to Victoria’s Secret first, telling Scott to wait outside so “I can surprise you, babe,” leaving them twiddling their thumbs. Or, leaving Scott and Derek to be awkward outside the store; Stiles wanders around because there’s too much energy thrumming under his skin. He comes back clutching a hot bag of pretzels, and sees a man talking to Scott and Derek.

“-for your girlfriends, too?” Stiles catches, watching as the man tips his head back and laughs. Scott’s smiling, but Derek looks stone-faced and awkward in the way that only Stiles can catch.

A woman comes out of the store, tall and large, with long brown hair that curls slightly at the end. She’s pretty, Stiles notes, with a soft looking face and an upturned nose. She smiles, hooking her arm in the man’s, and as they walk away she throws a look over her shoulder, still smiling, at Scott and Derek.

Stiles stops besides them. The man and woman are lost in the crowd.

“What was that about?” Stiles asks around the pretzel shoved in his mouth. He offers the bag to Scott, then Derek.

Scott shrugs. “He was asking us if we were waiting for our girlfriends.”

“What did you say?” Stiles hadn’t heard them respond, but the mall was filled with all other sorts of noises – children crying, teens yelling and random chatter – and the man had been weirdly loud.

“That I was,” Scott says, taking a massive bite of his pretzel. Stiles steps a little closer in case Scott starts to choke.

Stiles looks to Derek, who raises his eyebrows. “I’m not,” he says, and his voice seems a little darker than before.

“How is your love life doing, anyway?” Scott asks, looking for all the world like he doesn’t care too much about the answer. Stiles tries furiously to meet Scott’s eyes – because what the fuck? That’s not how bros play – but Scott just stares at his pretzel like it’s some puzzle.

Derek doesn’t look away from Stiles for a long moment, but turns to Scott to answer. “It’s doing,” he says, like that answers anyfuckingthing at all. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but closes it. After a few seconds of awkward shuffling (on Stiles’ behalf) and intense staring (both Scott and Derek), he continues. “No recent developments.”

“So what does that mean?” Stiles blurts out. “You’re single? Going steady? What?” He shoves the rest of the pretzel in his mouth immediately after, like it can take back what he just said. He hopes, absently, that he chokes on it.

Stiles catches Derek raising an eyebrow in his peripheral, but the floor is vastly more interesting. It’s… grey, with small black and white flecks. He looks for patterns in the dots – has just found Ursa Minor when Derek answers.

“…Single,” he says slowly, looking confused.

Stiles nods. And nods, and keeps nodding. “Cool cool cool.”

Allison, mercifully, comes out at that moment, clutching two bags. She grins blindingly at them, like she doesn’t sense the awkward atmosphere.

“Let’s go to the sports store,” she says, and Stiles grabs Scott’s arm and drags him to the store, leaving Allison and Derek in their wake.

“Dude,” Scott frowns when they’re far enough Allison and Derek can’t overhear them. Unless they have, like, super hearing or something.

Stiles ignores the silent question. “What the fuck, Scott,” he says instead.

Scott shrugs. “What do you mean?”

He almost stops in his tracks, mouth dropping open, but reminds himself they’re in a public space and he’s trying to avoid looking suspicious. Stiles thinks his little stutter passes off as just an awkward misstep.

When he speaks again, his voice is a little rougher around the edges. “You know exactly what. What sort of fucking question is that? That was the single most suspicious sounding _interrogation_ ,” he releases Scott’s arm to throw his own about, and it’s only when the blood rushes to his hand that he realises how tightly he was gripping Scott. Kudos to him for not even reacting, “I’ve ever heard. He knows. He has to know. Oh, my God.”

“Dude,” Scott says again, and pats Stiles on the back. They’re in front of the sports store, now, and wait outside. “It’s no big. And besides,” he shrugs. “You should know if he does have a love life or not. You’ve been in love with him for, like, four years.”

“Three and a half,” Stiles mutters dejectedly.

“What’s three and a half?” Allison asks, popping up in front of them. He hadn’t even noticed them catching up.

Scott recovers quicker than Stiles (who’s just gaping a little, mind broken, because fuck Derek had almost heard. Had he heard? Fuck, Stiles is going to have to move. Poland? Iceland has nice scenery), though Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if Scott wasn’t even surprised by Allison and Derek. He has, like, an Allison radar.

“Since the bakery opened!” He grins. “Stiles has worked there for three and a half years. The longest job he’s held,” he adds helpfully.

“I’ve been translating for longer than that,” Stiles mumbles.

Derek frowns. “You don’t like working at the bakery?”

“Nooo,” Stiles waves his hands about, shaking his head. “I love it. It’s good. I’m good at it. And I’ve met some-” _one I want to sort of marry_ , he finishes in his head. “Some… pretty cool people. Erica’s pretty sweet.”

“Not me?”

“You’re the worst part of the bakery, obviously.”

Allison rolls her eyes. “Can we get on with this, please?”

It’s easier in the sports store, because he doesn’t have to think about his anxieties too hard. Can just focus on the easy familiarity of Derek rolling his eyes when Stiles aims an empty crossbow at him, focus on his and Scott’s rushed apologies when an employee threatens to kick them out for sparring with the baseball bats. Doesn’t have to focus on the heaviness in his gut. When Derek pokes thoughtfully at a chalk bag, Stiles turns away, doesn’t focus on how he loves the little furrow Derek gets between his brows when he’s focused, because that’s a little too familiar in a way Stiles likes a little too much. Tosses a tennis racket at Scott.


	11. Do you want a hot dog to fill your bun?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bakery-related titles has delved into food-related innuendos. i'll probably have to bring that back around, but whatever.  
> also this chapter is like, almost entirely description. i got carried away.

Bee’s is a diner that has been in Beacon Hills for as long as Stiles can remember. It’s got a 50’s sort of vibe, with vibrant red booths and black and white linoleum floors. There’s a large jukebox to one side, and above it different posters that the restaurant has collected over the years: there’s one for some band called ‘ONE EYES’, advertising a gig in some retro, long shut down cafe from 1998, a Star Wars one in a glass frame, and several ones that require too many layers of meta understanding for Stiles to make sense of. He thinks one of the owners of Bee’s was really into that sort of thing, weird and wonderful memorabilia. Stiles can get behind that.

The rest of the walls – made of wooden panels, a recent instalment he’s almost certain Derek helped with, if not for Derek’s love of old people than for the little wolf carved right in one of the corners that you can only see if you get on your knees and crawl under a table, which Stiles _has_ – are covered in large, LED lit signs. There’s only a few different and simple designs, a milkshake, and a burger and fries, and a jukebox, but they repeat on each wall, in total making nine of them. They’re in different colors in a seemingly random pattern – some of them glow white, some glow neon pink and some blue – casting the diner in a multicolored haze. The diner was just around the corner from the rest of the town, but tucked into a little alcove of the forest, so that if you looked out the window you’d think that there was nothing else to the world. With the seeming isolation and the strange lighting, Bee’s would never fail to create an almost surreal atmosphere, like you’re not quite here and not quite there, instead for a couple hours finding yourself in an interminable space for what seems like an interminable amount of time. It’s strange, and when you step outside again and the sounds of cars rushing down the main road just around the corner and the smells of the forest and the feelings of the hot Californian sun, the cool breeze carried from the lake further down the road, you’re thrown into a confusion, feeling almost disillusioned. Like you weren’t somewhere quite real.

It’s weird.

Bee – Stiles is actually pretty sure she’s called, like, Bridget or something, but Bee’s has stayed in the family since the diner was opened, and every owner has been renamed Bee, because _tradition_ – is a short black woman, weary faced and a little heavy around the hips. There’s a hardness to her face, lines deep, and her eyes are so dark they’re almost black. Her uniform is yellow, and she wears her greying hair in a bun and under a hairnet, and she keeps her face plain. Her eyebrows are left to their own devices – they’re thick, and a little bushy – and if it weren’t for the fact he’s seen her in Lush several times he’d think the most she put on her face was lip balm in the winter months.

Bee isn’t actually that kind, but everyone loves her anyway. She’s actually sort of mean – not in an outright and intentional way, but she’s brash and her words are rough and a little rude. She _does_ seem to care in her own way, though, or at least Stiles likes to think, optimistically. After his mother had died he used to sneak out and come here in the middle of the school day. She’d purse her lips at him, and slam a burger in front of him. She’d never make him pay, and she’d never say a thing.

(He stopped coming to Bee’s for a long time when school called his dad a few too many times about his truancy, and it wasn’t that his dad wasn’t angry, or that he didn’t yell – he did, but it was less about enforcing rules as it was his frustrations, and he gave up pretty quickly – it was that Stiles found his dad passed out on the couch, an empty bottle in hand.

Stiles didn’t come back until he started middle school, two years later. Scott’s mom took them both there for dinner. Stiles’ dad had been working a late shift. Bee had given him a long, hard look, but beyond that treated him like any other customer. It was comforting, in its own way.

The diner is busy so the booth they get is a pretty shit one, but it’s alright because his burger is hot and juicy, his milkshake – strawberry, because when he’d gone to order his usual of banana-caramel-peanut-butter-with-whipped-cream, Derek had glared at him and Allison had scrunched her face up, and considering her fucking coffee order was a _bit cheeky_ – thick. Elvis Presley is playing in the background, and the park is apparently forgotten as the four of them laugh and jibe at each other. Stiles is sat, tucked next to the window, next to Scott, Derek opposite him, and it’s a cruel twist of fate that the blue light makes him look the way he does now, shadows Prussian blue and eyes startling. The pale, sky-colored saturation of Derek’s skin only adds to the surreal atmosphere of the diner, because for all the world Stiles cannot imagine Derek in any other light.

They finish up, leaving tips (probably disproportionately large, but Stiles doesn’t think anyone has ever left Bee a small tip) and everyone but Stiles needs to go to the toilet, so he’s left to loiter for a bit. He leans against the counter, looking into the kitchen from behind the curtain of chains. He’s not sure how many people work here – he knows it’s family run, but Stiles has never seen anyone but Bee.

Bee, who is drying her mug (it’s as much of a staple piece in the diner as the jukebox or the weird lighting, some chipped pink-and-white polka dot thing that looks bigger than a mug has any right to look), giving Stiles an unimpressed look.

“What?” Stiles asks. She shakes her head and looks away. He frowns, but it’s short lived. Everyone comes out of the bathrooms (at the same time, and it’s a little weird but Stiles isn’t going to think too hard about it. They’re weird people) and they leave, waving goodbye to Bee’s back. Stepping outside is a strange rush, the world coming back to them at once, and like every single guest that has ever left Bee’s they still for a moment, looking and feeling confused, before shaking off the feeling and reminding themselves that there is, in fact, an outside world.

Something comes to Stiles when they step back into town, and he turns to Derek.

“What was up with you before?” He asks. “In the park?”

Derek gapes at him, and looks like he’s about to answer when Allison smacks them on the arm. “We’ll be late to the movie!” She cries out, like it’s their fucking fault.

And, like that, the park is forgotten again.


	12. Get baked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the chapter being shorter than usual :( just kinda worked out that way  
> also i had my place confirmed for this event at cambridge but i probably won't be able to post that day so i'll try to get a couple spare filler chapters written over the weekend that i can post then. they'll be completely arbitrary but whateverr  
> ALSo also i do remember seeing this home renovations show htat i used to watch loads with my dad idk that had the new wood thing but it defo was not extreme makeover home edition. but i don't remember the title, so? emhe it is

The movie is just a rerun of some crappy horror picture, with too much blood and too little plot. Stiles loves it, doesn’t try to hide his grin, shoving popcorn in his mouth and letting it spill out.

Derek looks at him with a mixture of awe and disgust. “You are so weird,” he says, shaking his head.

There’s a certain sort of irony to it, when they stumble out afterwards, Scott pale, that Stiles can watch any flick with any amount of blood but needles make him ill, and Scott is a fucking _vet_ but fictional blood makes him queasy. They’re still riding the high, laughing and pushing at each other. Stiles feels, inexplicably, like he could rule the world like this.

“That was so crappy,” Allison says, but she’s smiling.

Stiles smiles back at her. “I know!”

There’s a moment, then, where everything seems to lull just the slightest bit. Stiles’ grin tames, but it’s still there. He feels doped up. “It was great,” he says. And it was – he fucking loves the cinema.

He decides they need to go to the store (they’re all out anyway, and he suddenly wants to make oatmeal cookies) and he grabs Allison’s hand, pulling her onto a low rise wall around the car park in front of the store. They’re laughing, and laugh even harder when Stiles stumbles and falls off the wall, pulling Allison down with him.

In the store – some nondescript building with out of date chips and flickering fluorescent lights – they’re still messing about, pushing each other and throwing (and catching) shit. The cashier fixes them with a hard look, but she’s probably a student, tired looking with pink hair and looks no older than eighteen, and students never put in more effort than strictly necessary, so she doesn’t say anything.

“Oh man,” Scott says when the trolley is full (and they’ve tired themselves out from riding it down the aisles). “I feel like I’m sixteen again.”

Stiles nods. “Yeah dude,” he agrees, pushing the trolley towards the counter. “Remember summer after sophomore year?”

“How many places did we get banned from?”

“Like, five? No, six. Definitely six. Hey, Derek?” Stiles turns to Derek, who’s poking at a tub of humus. “How old were you when we were sixteen, again? Like, thirty?”

Derek sneers at Stiles. “Around that.” He rolls his eyes when Scott laughs. “Truly your magnum opus of humor.”

“Come on,” Stiles grins. “We didn’t all develop your gallows humor from the first world war.”

Derek shoves Stiles lightly in the chest. The cashier looks unimpressed.

“Thirty dollars twenty-eight,” she drawls. Stiles whistles.

“The recession hit us hard, huh.”

They split off pretty shortly after. It’s late afternoon now, the June air starting to cool somewhat, and the sun is starting to set. Scott and Allison hug them goodbye (and it’s always hilarious to watch people other than Stiles hug Derek. He just stands there, looking like he’s considering the quickest method of suicide until you let him go) and say they’ll see them later, keep in touch okay? And Stiles says that he will, have fun you crazy kids!

They leave, and it’s just Stiles and Derek.

“I should get back to the studio,” Derek says, sounding like he’s swallowing around the words. “I’m trying out some new stuff.”

“Oh really? You’ll have to show me. What is it?” Stiles says, in one breath.

Derek looks a little flustered, like he’s trying to hide a smile. It’s endearing, and Stiles knows that he makes Derek happy when he’s excited over his work. Like, it’s _woodwork_ , it’s not the most exciting thing to most people, but Stiles _loves_ it. He loves seeing Derek work, and loves seeing his new projects, whether they work out or not.

(Though Derek tends to get rid of the ones that don’t work out before Stiles can see them, either dismantling them or having an impromptu bonfire.)

“It’s sort of experimental. Using new wood and seeing how it shapes itself.”

“That’s awesome,” Stiles says, even though he only knows vaguely what Derek means because of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

“You’ll have to let me know how it works out,” he carries on, and Derek is nodding and turning away. “Oh! Are you coming to dinner this Sunday?” His dad started inviting Derek to family dinners on Sundays, and it became something of a tradition. Stiles is pretty sure his dad started inviting Derek out of pity, but whatever. It’s fun, still, and they get on worryingly well.

Derek nods. He smiles softly and privately. “See you tomorrow,” he says.


	13. Sunday Funday!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the shorter chapter last time this one is a little bit longer

One of Stiles’ ideas for the bakery was to call it _Sunday Funday_ and have, like, a special on their most popular baked goods, but then Lydia had asked him what he typically does on Sundays and when he was about to answer “going to my dads,” he realized how decidedly not a good idea that was.

Saturday had passed pretty uneventfully – he sort of forgot the outside world exists and spent the entire time translating this stupid fucking vampire novel into English, and when he took a break (break, in this case, meaning baked oatmeal and raspberry cookies) he found a few texts off Lydia of pictures of dresses and shoes saying “guess what I bought” and “no wonder I was prom queen… I outshine everyone :/” and another saying “you’re coming to my mother’s soiree next month and I’ve bought you a suit also you’re working on Monday with Boyd”.

(Which he wasn’t terribly averse to. Working with Boyd is fun – either he’ll ignore you and you get to spend the entire day seeing how far you can push him, which while perhaps a _little_ morally corrupt, _very_ fun and _very_ worth the pain, or you get into shit with Gerard because you decide to fuck with him.)

There’s a few other texts, from Scott and Derek and his dad – selfies with a three-legged dog with a “!!!” attached and a message saying “I fucking hate customers,” and a short “SEE YOU TOMORROW,” because his dad doesn’t know how to text like a normal person.

Sunday comes around, and Stiles doesn’t realize until his phone is ringing and it tells him it's 3am. He frowns at the caller id.

“Lydia?” He says, pausing the movie (it’s really bad, and apparently the dialogue is all improvised, and it’s just really, really bad and he’s feeling a little sad about it).

There’s silence on the other line for a long while, and Stiles chews at his lip, glancing at where Keith is curled on one end of the couch. He’d bought Keith a bed, but after sniffing at it he’d just shit in it and claimed the couch.

“Can I come over?” Lydia asks eventually, and she sounds a little too small and raw for Stiles’ liking.

“Of course,” he gets up from the couch and makes sure the door is unlocked, pulling two mugs from the cupboards.

Lydia doesn’t live far, and just as Stiles is pulling the mugs from the microwave he hears the door open.

She looks like shit. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her face is pale and clammy looking. She’s wrapped up, and maybe it’s three in the morning it’s still June, and it’s still California, so she’s either sick or sad, but either way in need of comforting layers.

She sniffs, and her nose is red and running, and it’s a little gross. “Are those mug brownies?” She asks timidly. He hands her one, and a fork.

Stiles wants to ask. He really does – he’ll do anything for his friends, probably kill for them if he’s honest, and a 3am courtesy call is no big deal but… he wants to ask.

“Whipped cream?” He asks instead, not because it’s easier but because it’s kinder.

She shakes her head, and perches on the couch like she’s not quite sure she’s welcome.

The movement seems to stir Keith, who stretches and kneads his paws into Lydia’s thigh. She scratches his back absently, and he jumps onto her lap and settles there, curling up and going back to sleep.

Stiles tries not to scowl. Keith loves everyone but Stiles. Asshole.

He sits next to Lydia, and she does her best to curl into him without shifting Keith. He puts an arm around her, wrapping it around so his fingers curl through her hair and press against her scalp – her hair is a little greasy, too knotty to run his fingers through comfortably so he just rubs gentle circles into her scalp – and she turns her head into his shoulder. He presses a quick kiss to her forehead, and asks:

“Do you wanna talk about it?” He says it quietly, like he’s afraid to break something he can’t exactly see. He feels more than sees her shake her head, and he asks, “do you want to watch scary movies until we’re too spooked to go to sleep or look at our shadows?” She nods.

He puts on the Conjuring, and they try not to jump too much but it’s enough to wake Keith up, who arches his back and swipes at them (at Stiles, really) before hopping off the couch and slinking off to wherever it is he goes to when he’s sick of people (of Stiles). After that, they don’t pretend not to be scared, clutching at each other and laughing weakly every time they jump or clutch at each other. Stiles goes to put the Conjuring 2 on, but Lydia grabs at his wrist and shakes her head.

“Hey,” Stiles whispers, pulling her into his arms. “You alright?”

She rubs furiously at her nose, eyes becoming a little ill-defined. “It’s just,” she manages, before bursting into tears.

And Stiles just holds her, lets her ugly cry into his top, and pretends like the wet patch and inevitable snot isn’t gross. She’s shaking, and feels scarily frail in his arms, simultaneously like he’s the only thing holding her together and like he could break her apart if he held a little too tight. He rubs circles into her back, whispers nonsensical, hopefully comforting words, and lets her cry. The sky outside is a hazy grey, and Stiles know that rapidly it will give away to pinks and oranges and purples and blues, but all he can see now is the strawberry blonde of Lydia’s matted hair.

Stiles isn’t sure how much time passes, but the room is a little lighter and Keith is pawing at his leg impatiently. Lydia sniffs wetly, pulling away and rubbing at her eyes. Her face is blotchy and downcast.

“I’m just gonna,” Stiles gestures at Keith. Lydia nods.

Keith follows Stiles to the kitchen, getting in his way and trying to trip him, and Stiles fills a kettle with water and lights the stove before getting cat food (which he’d fruitlessly hid in the back of the highest shelf of the cupboard. It doesn’t matter where he puts it. Keith knows) and pouring it into a bowl. He bends to put it in front of Keith, and grabs two mugs and two tea bags. The kettle screams.

After a minute, Lydia speaks up. “I think Jackson’s cheating on me,” she says. Stiles pours the hot water into the mugs, stirs it in and adds sugar and milk.

“Tea’s done,” he says. Lydia gets up and takes one of the mugs – a lime green one he thinks Erica bought for him – from his hands. She leans against the counter.

They drink for a long minute, pretend the tea doesn’t burn their mouths.

“Why do you think that?” Stiles says. Lydia shrugs.

“He’s evasive,” she says. “Coming home late and leaving on the weekends to meet a friend. And he smells like someone else.”

“You don’t think he’s meeting a friend?”

“His only friend is Danny,” Lydia says. “And Danny is in Ireland right now.” It’s true – Danny had gone to Ireland to consult with some big security company. When Stiles had asked why he can’t just consult over the internet, Danny had shrugged and listed the merits of Irish men, a conversation Stiles doesn’t need to relive. “You know Jackson. He doesn’t make friends.” This is also true. Jackson, for all that he talks about himself, is reserved and doesn’t let people in easily. He’s an asshole, sure, but he and Stiles have that in common.

Stiles gnaws at his lip. “I don’t think that’s true, Lydia.” He says. He doesn’t. Jackson is (not so) affectionately listed as Jackass on Stiles’ contact list, and he doesn’t like the guy, but Jackson does love Lydia. Once he’d figured out all his issues (in a totally manly way) he’d been able to love Lydia the way she deserved, and maybe it had been a kick to sixteen-year-old Stiles’ nuts at the time, now he’s grateful for Jackson.

She looks away, and her face scrunches up for a second before she can soothe it out again. “I don’t. Not really. But,” she sniffs again, and drowns her next sentence in her tea. “What if he is?”

“What if he’s not? C’mon Lydia, look at you. Even looking like you’ve gone a couple rounds with the plague, you still look gorgeous. You’re smart as hell, and you’re… you’re absolutely amazing, Lydia, and Jackson loves you. Besides,” he continues. “Who else would put up with him?”

“You know as well as I do he could get anyone to sleep with him.”

“That’s…” that’s true. “But I don’t think he’d want to sleep with anyone else. He really does love you, Lydia. I saw him renting The Notebook for what I know is, like, the hundredth time. You think he’d do that for anyone else?” He drinks for a long moment. “Listen. I’m not… great, with relationships,” which is possibly an understatement. He’d dated, in his twenty-five years, been in a total of three relationships, all of which ended messily. “But I know you can’t make it work if you don’t _talk_ to each other. Like, that’s what a relationship is supposed to be, right? Someone you can talk to about anything?”

She looks at him, eyes wide and full of tears. Stiles thinks for a hysteric moment that he could poke her and she’d fall apart in waves. “Like you and Derek?”

“Sure, like me and – no. Uh, no. Me and Derek – Lydia. Just talk to Jackson. I promise you’ll be glad you did.”

She rubs at her eyes, and puts her half-full mug down. She chews on her lip, and stares at where Keith is demolishing his food. “Can I use your shower?” She says eventually. Stiles nods. He reaches out before she can go, and he pulls her tight to him, wrapping his arms around her like he can hide her from everything. He presses his lips to her forehead, and she shakes minutely against him.

“I love you,” he says. He feels her smile against him.

“Love you too,” and the words are muffled.


	14. Bear (claw) with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have an exam on thursday and it's just a mock so i'm not worried but i haven't actually been... put down for it? idk why. maybe because it's a bunch of year 13s doing it and i'm a year 12 so they didn't think to.  
> i love you so much for your continued support it actually does mean a lot tbh!!!!!! <33

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Stiles asks, shoveling the (low fat, healthy) lasagna in his mouth. Derek starts to choke on his water.

His dad hits Derek on the back, raising an eyebrow at Stiles. “Stiles,” he says sternly.

Stiles shrugs, not apologetic. “He’ll live,” he says. “And I was just wondering. Like, I was watching this TV show-”

“-Exactly where you go for your real ghost stories,” Derek manages, face red.

Stiles purses his lips. “You know, I wish you had choked. Some of that shit is convincing!”

His dad raises his eyebrows.

“Uh,” Stiles says. “Stuff. Some of that stuff.”

“Do you think your apartment is haunted?” Derek asks, and his face is plain but his voice pokes fun at Stiles.

“Oh, hush you.” He stabs at Derek with his fork. “I’m just asking. It’d be pretty cool, you know. If ghosts existed.”

“You mean if you were being haunted by souls trapped to this world, unable to pass over? Being terrorised and harmed?” Derek takes a sip of his water, managing not to choke. “That’d be cool?”

Stiles waves his arms about, and the Sheriff moves his glass silently out of the way. “Stop! Stop this cruelty! I’m just _saying,_ ” he stabs at his lasagna, “it’d be _pretty cool_ if, like, the paranormal existed. And stuff.”

Derek rolls his eyes, and John says, “I wouldn’t be entirely averse to a poltergeist killing you in his sleep. You know, if the paranormal existed.”

“You two are cruel and unusual. I don’t like you. This is the last Sunday we spend together!”

Afterwards, Stiles and Derek wash up after Stiles ushered his dad onto the couch and told him, “watch football and nurse your beer like the old man you are.”

(“This beer is non-alcoholic.”

“That is so not the point.”)

Derek is washing the dishes as Stiles dies up and puts them away. It’s routine – Derek had felt too guilty to not clean up, and doing the dishes was always something Stiles has always done. Their banter is easy and light, hip checking and splashing with warm water and smacking with towels.

They lull into a comfortable silence, and the sun hitting Stiles through the window makes him feel lazy and content.

“What brought up the ghost thing?” Derek asks, eventually. It doesn’t feel like he’s breaking the quiet – simply adding a layer of quiet, his voice hardly there.

Stiles shrugged. “Sometimes I just think that, you know,” he puts the last plate on the stack in a cupboard, and the clink is loud, yet muted, “there has to be more than this.” He waves his hands around. “Like, there’s so much we don’t know about – space, the oceans – so why not ghosts? Why not crazy shit like that? I mean, it would be interesting. I feel like things are… static, right now.”

Derek looks thoughtfully at where his hands are pruning up. Stiles always tells him to wear plastic gloves, and what the fuck does Derek not do? “I think,” he starts, “that there is enough wonder and mystery. Why do we need the paranormal? I don’t think things are static.” He turns to face Stiles, absently pulling his hands from the sink and wiping them on the towel Stiles throws at him. “I just don’t think you’re looking hard enough at what there is. Obsession with things larger than us leads to forgetting about smaller things.”

Stiles pauses, then whistles. “Nice speech there, Derek. Did you practice that at all?”

Derek looks a little flustered. “I. Don’t want you to become dissatisfied with what is.” Stiles forgets how to breathe for a moment.

He thinks about it. The smaller things – his dad is in the living room, healthy and happy and nearby. The kitchen smells perpetually of food, of _home_ , and a kitchen that smells used is a kitchen well loved, like his mother used to say.

The ache over the years has gone, when it comes to his mother. He’s sad still, but more grateful for the years he had with her than anything. Grateful that he’s been able to move on as well as he has. That his father has, too.

He thinks about how Derek’s eyes look in this light, pale and grey in the way a rock at the bottom of a river is grey. He thinks about how he can, if he concentrates, hear Derek’s breathing, deep and heady, and can smell him and the faint smell of wood chips and grass on him. He thinks that, beneath Derek, he can almost _smell_ the warmth, and the heat isn’t overwhelming but comfortable, like he could lie down and actually relax. He can hear the TV in the background, and he can hear outside the birds in the woods, the faint mutterings of conversations and shrieks and laughter.

He thinks about the woods, about the creek running through the preserve where he slipped and cracked his head open, thinks about how the red ran into the water and he cried and Melissa stitched him up. He thinks about hiking with Derek, up the peak of Beacon Hills and sitting on the cliff edge, overlooking the city, and thinks about hiking through the forest and slipping by the same creek and cracking his head open again. Derek had freaked and taken him to the ER, but they laughed about it afterwards (or, Derek and Melissa laughed at him while he winced in pain).

He thinks about college, about dating Heather and breaking up again, about his crush on Danny and his antagonistic relationship with Danny. He thinks about the rare mornings he wakes up with Keith curled on his chest, and the satisfaction of finishing a translation or a successful batch of cookies.

He thinks about summers with Scott and Allison and the bakery with Lydia and Boyd and Erica and every moment with Derek and his dad, and yeah, maybe ghosts would still be pretty cool, but he thinks that maybe this is pretty cool, too.


	15. It's too hot -- blow on it for me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is mostly a running commentary @ myself and how little i think things through. also, the weed comment may refer to a few things, including but not exclusive to the time my friend got stoned and had to sit a physics exam. she got a u, if you were wondering.

Lydia comes in halfway through his shift with Boyd, wearing a brown suede skirt and a white blouse. Her hair is pulled up and done in a braid across the crown. It looks soft and shiny, and Stiles thinks a little hysterically that he could shove his face in it and it would smell like strawberries, or something.

“Someone’s looking cheerful today,” he says, because she does. There’s a rare smile on her face, real and small, and she looks fresh and is practically glowing.

She gives him a long look, and smirks. “I just had mind blowing sex. I don’t expect you to understand.”

Stiles frowns. Boyd smirks.

He’s glad, though, because this means she’s sorted out whatever it was with Jackson out. He’ll have to remind himself to ask her about that, later.

Lydia comes around the counter and grabs a mug. They’re plain white, but Lydia was talking about ordering in a bunch in different colors. For, you know, the aesthetic. “Anyway,” she says. “I didn’t come here because I missed your charming face-”

“No one will judge you,” Stiles interrupts.

“-I actually have to talk to you about something.” She ignores his comment, and snaps her fingers at Boyd. “You too, sweetie. I see you trying to escape.” She fixes him with a hard look.”

“Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see,” Stiles whispers. Boyd rolls his eyes. Stiles is a little disappointed, and it’s times like this where he misses Erica. She’d have played along.

Lydia takes a sip from her tea, and frowns. “I don’t get it,” she says. “It’s hot, and yet all we drink are hot drinks.” She shakes her head. “Whatever. It’s exam season.”

Boyd says nothing. Neither does Lydia. Stiles squints. “Yeah,” he says slowly, tentatively. He doesn’t know where this is going, but no good sentence includes the word ‘exam’.

“So what do we do with stressed students?”

She raises her eyebrows expectantly.

Boyd says nothing again. This time, neither does Stiles. He just shakes his head.

“We capitalize,” she grins.

“Oh no,” Boyd says, and that’s when it clicks.

“Oh no,” Stiles says. “Lydia, don’t do this.”

Her grin is wolfish, all teeth. “I want you to work longer hours. We’ll open earlier-”

“How much earlier.”

“-and close later. It’s fantastic. We’ll draw in so much more traffic.”

There’s silence for a few beats. Stiles has to ask.

“…Has Gerard done this yet?”

Like that, her face crumples into something mean and a little hard. “Yes. Of course he has. Do you know why, Stiles?”

Stiles shakes his head. He doesn’t.

“Because he’s a rat! Of _course_ he did this if he thinks it gives him a leg up over us.”

“That is a shockingly disturbing image,” Boyd says. Stiles nods. It is.

“But he’s opening at, like, half six. And closing at ten,” Lydia continues.

“I do not like the direction this is heading,” Stiles says. “I feel like you haven’t thought this out. Like, this is really ill thought out. It’s like giving us weed and saying go wild. It’s just not a good idea, Lydia.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Lydia sniffs. “No, really, I don’t. What are you talking about. Why would I give you weed. And besides, it’s a great idea. We’ll open at six,” Stiles feels his heart shatter, “and close at eleven. We’ll get more traffic, people will think, ‘oh boy! I’m sure glad _Lydia’s_ is a bakery that acts more like a cafe than anything else and will serve us coffee at obscene hours.’ And that’s another thing. Why does no one seem to buy baked goods from us? We’re a bakery, not a cafe.”

Stiles shrugs helplessly.

“Not the point. We’re doing this.”

“Is that…” Stiles starts. “Is that not illegal? Like, that’s… a lot of hours. Are we legally allowed to work that long?”

Lydia rolls her eyes. “You’ll work in shifts, idiot. I’m not cruel.”

“Only, like, seventy percent cruel, maybe.”

“Shut up, Stiles.”

“Shutting up.”

“You’ll be working in shifts. I know you’re used to working the whole day, but you’re used to nine-to-five, and I don’t trust you,” she looks at Stiles, “to be in my bakery for more than that. So I’ll be changing the rota, and you’ll be okay with it.”

“That’s…” that’s not okay. “But I-”

Lydia rolls her eyes again. “Shut up, Stiles. You’ll still work Derek hours, but you’ll work from half three to eleven on Thursdays and Sundays, and you can forget Tuesdays, before you complain.” Stiles shuts his mouth. “Can you work Saturday mornings?”

“Erm,” Stiles says. Things about the stupid Polish manuscript. “I don’t… think so.”

She purses her lips.

“I can,” Boyd says. “It’s no issue. And I can work mornings on Stiles’ other days, if you’d like.”

Boyd’s primary source of income is the bakery. Stiles thinks he picks up some shifts at _Bee’s_ , washing dishes, but it’s not good pay, so Stiles isn’t surprised that he’s asking for extra shifts.

“That would be great,” Lydia smiles, genuine and bright. It must have been good sex. And she’s right. He doesn’t understand – he’s had the longest dry spell forever (two and a half years, his mind offers helpfully, because he tried to cover up the whole Derek situation with strangers’ mouths in the bathrooms of clubs and it didn’t work out great, but whatever).

“Who’ll,” Stiles coughs. “Who’ll cover me tomorrow? At…”

“At his Derek hours,” Boyd clarifies.

Stiles glares. “Thanks, Boyd, for clearing that up. You’re the real MVP.”

Boyd smiles.

“You’re pathetic,” Lydia says. “And we’ll be talking about what classes as a healthy infatuation and an obsession later.”

“I-”

“No complaints. I’m in a good mood, don’t ruin it. Erica said she’d take any _Derek hours_ ,” she sneers at the words, but Stiles can see the glee in her eyes, “that you’ll be missing.”

“Oh, I take it back,” Stiles says. “You are a hundred percent cruel. Hundred and ten! Cruel and unusual. This is one bitch of an unsatisfactory situation.”

Lydia gives him a hard look. “And we’ll also talk about projecting your feelings onto gay movies.”

“I-”

“No complaints! I could fire you. I should. You’re making me go grey.”

“Sorry,” he says irrationally.


	16. I cannoli see you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is from allison's pov because i do what i want.

There are a few things that Allison knows.

The first, is that Stiles and Derek aren’t dating. Except that they are.

She shakes her head. She doesn’t really know about that, not really.

The second is that running in June is fucking tedious.

She’s jogging through the forest, through her usual route, and though the trees block out the sun they also seem to trap in the heat, and she’s sweaty and gross and she’s pretty sure a fly is using her sweat as glue. It’s disgusting.

But she likes running. She knows this, too.

It’s not something you have to think about – just put your body through the motions, and listen when it starts to ache a little too much – so Allison can lose focus, and it doesn’t mean a thing. Her mind goes blank, filled only with the cyclic motion of her legs, only needs to remember to breathe, and her body does the rest. She will stop, now and then, to stretch and cool down and make sure her muscles are getting enough oxygen.

Anaerobic respiration is also something she knows.

The third (or fourth, or fifth) thing she knows is that she hates her job. Except that she loves it.

She does love helping children in shitty situations, don’t get her wrong, but she hates the _shitty situations._ It can be upsetting, sometimes, in a way that leaves a deep and hollow ache, somewhere between her ribs. And it’s not just the kids that she feels for, though she does – no child should be forced into an unsafe environment – but having to take a child from their parents? Is not fun.

Because another thing Allison knows is that some parents are just bad parents, and not for lack of trying – because, Jesus, some of these parents try so hard – but they are just not made for it. Some are just too poor to support a child, and the state will intervene if their financial situation puts that child in danger, and that pisses Allison off. That a parent can be working three minimal wage jobs to support three children and still have it not be enough. She knows that people take advantage of desperate people – virtually free labor, if they need the job enough – and she knows, she _knows,_ that these parents should maybe not be parents, and maybe that’s a shitty thing to think but she thinks it.

It’s just…

It’s just their face, when you tell them you’re taking their child away, is going to be awful to look at. Some are angry, some cry and cry, and some just knew, all along, that this was where they were heading.

It is a cruel thing, Allison thinks, to lose your child.

And it sucks, to have to do that, but that’s Allison’s job. And she’s not going to endanger these children out of fucking sentiment, or guilt, and she knows that she likes running.

The inane repetition of it, the routine. When she stretches she slips out of her mind, and when she runs she’s far, far away.

She likes to listen to music when she runs, though she barely hears it over the _thump-thump_ of her heart, over the blood rushing through her ears and the white noise, loud and persistent and easy to forget.

Some nights she can’t sleep.

Some nights she runs, instead, and other nights she texts Lydia even though she knows Lydia would rather be asleep, probably drinks coffee so she can be awake and alert enough to reply.

Another thing Allison knows, is that she loves Lydia Martin.

When she first moved to Beacon Hills – sure, Scott made her feel special, but Lydia made Allison feel welcome. She did – she gave Allison her friends, and though she was a little superficial at first Lydia showed Allison what it really is to just _be_.

And to be able to watch Lydia Martin grow into who she really is? Was a privilege. To watch her shake off her shields and her defenses and say, ‘I’m Lydia fucking Martin,’ and really mean it for once in her life, was a beautiful thing to witness.

Inexplicably, Allison thinks of Stiles and the first thing she knows. That Stiles and Derek are dating – or, that they are but they aren’t, and they really should be.

Really, Allison thinks of the thing she knows that she should know but she doesn’t really know. Except for that she does, and they are – are dating, that is, even if they don’t know it.

That… there is some logic to that, she thinks, somewhere. She’s been spending too much time around Stiles, because she has no idea what she just said.

(Except that she does.)

He’s…

He’s quiet. Beneath the chatter and the constant movement, there’s something quiet about him. Quiet and still. He’s strange, Allison thinks – no, she knows – and she gets the overwhelming impression he is equally aware and unaware. He sees things that no one else sees, sees the bone beneath the surface and it’s a little morbid, Allison is _well aware,_ but there’s a morbid truth in it, too. Stiles can take one look at you and know you in a way no one else has known you. He figures things in a way no one else figures things. He’s insecure, yet wildly aware that he’s probably smarter than anyone in a room at any one time.

(And, a little traitorously, Allison thinks this may include Lydia. Because Lydia understands humanity, but Stiles understands people. In a way they both agree – and have talked about, on multiple occasions – that’s just a little creepy.

But Allison, after a lifetime of not really knowing people, has learnt to read people too. And she knows that Stiles is hopelessly in love, with Derek and with everyone he decides is worth his love, and she feels happy that she’s included in the short, short list of people Stiles cares about.)

Allison has spent entirely too long not knowing things. Not knowing what her parents whispered about, why they kept moving around the country, not knowing Beacon Hills or anything about it or why Scott was as weird and shifty as he was or what Lydia was pretending for or why Stiles is the way that he is, in every and all aspect.

She does, now, and makes a point of it. She’s gotten good at listening, and watching, and learning.

Allison stops, bending over with her hands gripping her knees and sucking in deep breaths, watching the forest around her.

She knows that the forest is beautiful. It’s deep green and brown and dark and light all at once, a little strange and dangerous and, beyond all the noise, startlingly silent. Quiet and still.

She stretches, making sure all her muscles are relaxed and her breath evens out. The sweat cools on her arms and her back and her face. There’s a water bottle clutched in her hands – with a charcoal filter, a present from her dad when they first moved to Albuquerque before Beacon Hills.

It’s then that she hears it – once she drowns out the background noise, there is silence, and through the silence there is the noise of a twig, snapping. She’s quiet, then, until she hears something else – leaves, shifting, and she’s quiet.

The noise is to the left of her, and she feels no danger as she moves – quietly, quietly – towards it. At first she sees nothing at all, because there is nothing to see, but when she pushes aside the shrubbery there is all the world to see, condensed in a small opening.

In the middle of the opening, chewing on the grass, is a massive tule elk, tall and impressive. It doesn’t notice her, or if it does it doesn’t care. It just keeps chewing, and Allison keeps staring, and the world is quiet and still.


	17. Come in(to) Stiles'... bakery. Stiles' bakery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have so many things happening also i'm actually stupid i thought cambridge was next week but it's manchester next week

“No.”

“Stiles,” Lydia chides, like she’s talking to a child.

Stiles pouts, and thinks that maybe she is. “There’s no way,” he says, “I’m going to look ridiculous.”

She throws her hands up. “We’ve been over this!” She says. “I told you I got you a suit. Where did I say, ‘if it so pleases you’? Nowhere. Nowhere, Stiles. Because I didn’t say that.” She tuts, and sips from her iced coffee (“because at some point we have to act like normal people, Stiles.”) and continues. “Listen, you’re going to look delicious in this. It’s to your measurements-”

“How do you know my measurements?”

“-I know everything. It’s to your measurements, and it’s going to look great.”

In all fairness, the suit is pretty normal looking. He doesn’t know his fashion, but it’s… nothing particularly out there. A charcoal grey dress shirt with a blood red skinny tie, and a black waistcoat, suit jacket and pants. She didn’t get him shoes – thank God – but she said that he already had nice dress shoes. Which he did, and has no recollection of ever buying them. He’s terrified that she’s aware of them.

But…

“How much was the suit, Lydia?”

She tuts. “Don’t you worry your little head, honey.”

“…What the hell kind of money are you getting from a _bakery?_ ” He asks. “Hey, what are you doing when you’re not at the bakery?”

Lydia ignores him.

“Just try it on, please.”

“Oh, no way. Those pants are not going to fit. I’ll burst the seams.” He’s not got, like, lumberjack thighs (like Derek) but those pants are _slim._

“Do you trust me?” Lydia asks.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, because _duh._

“Then trust me on this. Try on the pants.” Her voice brooks no argument. Stiles shuts his mouth with a click and picks up the suit.

“Just get changed here,” Lydia tuts. “I won’t look.”

Stiles feels like he’s being made fun of. “I’ll pick the bathroom,” he sneers.

It’s Lydia’s mothers soiree today – it’s been a couple days since she changed the hours at the bakery, and it’s been hell. Stiles is a morning person, sure, but waking up at half five in the morning is fucking awful. Yet, somehow, there has always a couple students in the bakery at six.

Her bathroom is pretty much how it’s always been, red and pink and large. The door is white and surprisingly cheap looking, but the shower is large with multiple nozzles (and, Stiles can say with confidence, _fantastic_ pressure) with an alcove where you can sit (probably to shave your legs, but Stiles is all too aware of the shower sex that ensues in there. Seriously, Lydia overshares), and the shower doors are a translucent blue. Lydia’s shower scrunchie was a bright pink and hanging from the door handles.

The shower mat was a berry red, thick and soft, and the same color as all the towels hanging off the heated towel rack. There were two sinks on a curved, marble counter, and the mirror was large and indented, with under-cabinet lights lining it. Lydia had her makeup bag and her sprays and gels on one side, and Jackson’s side of the counter was equally beauty laden. It wasn’t something Stiles could particularly relate to – his bathroom was small, and sparse.

Seriously, though – Stiles knows Lydia’s family is loaded, but she owns a bakery, not Beacon Hills. What is she doing.

(Maybe dating a lawyer has its perks, but Stiles knows that Lydia pays for her _own_ shit.

Stiles, though, knows no such honor. He should have been kinder to Jackson.)

“What happened with Jackson, by the way?” Stiles calls through the door, hesitating before he tugs off his tee.

He can hear Lydia sighing loudly. “Oh, he was just being an idiot. You know how he is.” Stiles does. He picks up the shirt. “He really did start working longer hours. Wanted to buy a summer house in Rome as a surprise for our anniversary.”

“Wanted a – for your – _what?”_ His fingers slip on the buttons of the shirt.

“I know,” she says, and he can hear the sarcasm in her voice. “I would have picked the Bahamas or something. I’ve _seen_ Rome. We went for a month last year.”

“How disappointing for you.”

“Hmm.” She’s silent for a moment. “How are you doing in there?”

“Uh-” he’s trying to wiggle the pants on and jumping about, trying not to trip over himself. “I’m doing fine. I just-”

“I’m coming in.”

“No you’re not!” He cries. He manages to get the pants on, and his fingers are at the zipper when the door slams open. Stiles shrieks.

“Oh, get over yourself, Stiles,” Lydia tuts. “We’ve been friends for years. My delicate female sensitivities aren’t going to be _offended_ by your _having your fly undone.”_

Stiles tugs his fly up, and wraps his arms around himself. “I’m shy,” he says.

She looks him up and down, eerily predatory. “You’re hot,” she says. “Come on, get the rest on.”

By ‘get the rest on’, Lydia means pulling him around and dressing him herself, because he’s “got the coordination of a blind baby giraffe, and I don’t think you’ve ever learnt how to wear a tie in your life.”

She brushes him down, flattening the jacket with her hands. “There,” she says, stepping back and smiling.

He looks himself in the mirror mounted on the door. He looks… nice. The suit is nice. It’s single-breasted, with two buttons and a single chest pocket, solid black and fitting. Like, really fitting.

“You’re sure this is the right size?” He says, tugging at the jacket.

She slaps his hands away. “Stop that,” she says, “and yes. It’s meant to be fitted. You don’t think it looks good?”

Stiles spins. His legs (and his ass) look… well, they look pretty great, actually, and the suit is _nice_.

He turns to Lydia. She’s dressed pretty unassuming, for her – a simple, bodycon black dress with no sleeves and a straight collar, cutting a couple inches above her knees. It looks like velvet, like he can reach out and stroke it happily for the whole evening. Around her neck is a choker with three rows of pearls, delicate and expensive looking, and her earrings are large and match. Her hair is up in a simple wrapped bun at the back of her head, with loose, curled strands of hair framing her face. She doesn’t look to be wearing much makeup – powder, some blush, with simple eyes – but her red lipstick is startling. She’s beautiful.

And staring in the mirror adoringly. “We look so hot,” she says, and steps in front of the mirror, facing Stiles. “Come on, smile for the camera.” Her phone is whipped out and snapping a picture of him before he can process what’s happening.

“What are you doing?” He asks as she stabs furiously at her phone.

“Sending it to Derek, duh.” She puts her phone down on the counter with a self-satisfied smirk. “He’s going to be so jealous.”

Stiles frowns. “Lydia…”

“Oh, honey,” she throws him a look of pity. “You already know the topic of discussion tonight is going to be you and Derek. You may as well make it easy on yourself and let it happen.”

His phone dings, and he gets on his knees (ignoring Lydia’s indignant gasp) and grabs it from his discarded jeans.

It’s from Derek.

**> > Have fun tonight.**

Stiles smiles.


	18. Rolling on you Romeo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rolling on you romeo is a song and also rolls. anyway, idk about this chapter again but if i think too hard about it i will never post it. i am perpetually unimpressed with what i write but i guess that's why i write.  
> also i really think university of nottingham is like, the ultimate, you know? like i know cambridge and oxford and durham are, technically, better and i could get in if i really tried but nottingham just calls to me.

“Not to be, like, _homophobic_ ,” Lydia starts.

“Stop,” Stiles says. “Don’t say anything else.”

She ignores him. Obviously. “But sometimes I am overwhelmed by your overwhelming homosexuality.”

“I’m…”

“Bisexuality. Whatever. Your interest in men. In _Derek_.” She grins. “It’s delicious. Like, my own personal gay TV drama.”

“I’m so glad my sexuality is entertainment to you,” Stiles says. “And by that I mean fuck off Lydia.”

“Oh, honey,” Lydia ruffles Stiles’ hair, then reaches around him to grab some of Jackson’s gel. Stiles is worried about where this is leading. “It’s just a TV drama that happens to be gay.”

“That…” Stiles starts. “Lydia, that’s still weird. And morally dubious, perhaps, but that’s pretty general for you.”

She shrugs.

“Come into the bedroom,” Lydia says, already halfway out the door. She points to the chair at her desk – a large, spinny thing that’s _so fucking comfortable_ – and he sits down obligingly. Lydia stands between his legs, rubbing gel between her fingers. “I just think the whole thing you’ve got going on with Derek is fascinating.”

“I’m pleased you feel that way.”

“And it’s really fun to watch.” She runs her fingers through his hair.

“Enjoy my misery a little more, please.”

“Oh, shush. It’s cute, watching you two dance around each other and pretend you’re not totally in love with each other. But it’s getting a little boring.”

“Boring?”

“Please,” she rolls her eyes, tugging a little too roughly at his hair. “This thing you two do has been going on since we opened. Like, there’s only so must UST I can handle, and I passed my threshold…” She pauses, fingers still clutching his head, and considers. “About three years ago. Think of all the hot sex you could have had by now. Think of all the _details_ I could have got. We could have gone on so many double dates.”

“You could have always invited us to hang out with you and Jackson anyway,” Stiles points out, “except you two would just have sex. It would be a little awkward for me and Derek.”

Lydia purses her lips. “Just think of all the progress you could have made by now. Have all those fights out the way, gone to each other’s house for thanksgiving… you could be living together, even.”

“Except,” Stiles says after a moment, “that we did not make that progress. We did not get together three years ago, and still are not together, and _probably won’t be together._ And let’s say,” he holds up a finger as Lydia opens her mouth, “that we do get together. Hypothetically. We’d already have those years of getting to know each other under the belt. But we did not make that progress in a romantic sense – platonic, yeah, which is just as important for people like me and Derek – and there’s no use wondering about _what if’s._ Because we didn’t, and that’s the whole of it.”

Lydia is silent for a moment, looking for all the world like she didn’t hear him – just caring about her fingers threaded in his hair – but he can see the slight flickers in her eyes, the line in her mouth that says, ‘do not interrupt these thoughts that I am having right now’.

“That,” she says eventually, “is true. You did not. But you should get together now, and I’m not just saying that because you need desperately to get dicked. Or to dick. I don’t think that hard about your sex life.”

“I’m shocked, surprised, and a little offended.”

“You and Derek,” she ignores him, “just make sense. Why do you think you ‘probably won’t’ get together?”

Stiles shrugs, and Lydia steps back, looking and watching. She makes a humming noise under her breath. “I don’t think he likes me like that. We work as friends, and _maybe_ I want more but… maybe more isn’t the right thing.”

“How would you know?”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Lydia says, pinning him with a hard look. “How. Would. You. Know.”

“I…” Honestly, he doesn’t. If he told the truth, he’d say that he’s scared that they wouldn’t work out as more than friends. Terrified, because -

Because he needs Derek in his life, in any capacity Derek will let Stiles have him.

“What would be so different if you and Derek were to be partners?” Lydia asks, either oblivious to his turmoil or deciding that she doesn’t care. “You two practically are. You tell each other personal things, you argue and make up, you go on _hikes_ together, Stiles. You two enjoy each other’s company, no matter the circumstance. Could you watch Scott for hours, performing surgery on animals?”

“Well, no, but that’s a little gross.”

“Maybe. But what’s so interesting about watching Derek work?”

“He’s…” Stiles thinks about exactly how much he wants to tell her. Runs a hand over his face. “He’s beautiful when he works.”

“You think he’s beautiful when he’s at his most content. You’re happy to sit there for hours, and Stiles – you are _bad_ at sitting still – and you’re always excited for whatever he’s doing, no matter how mundane. Listen,” she rubs her forehead, “I don’t want to go on and on about why you two just work, but you do. You make sense. And he’s totally gone on you, it’s so obvious.”

“It’s not-”

“It _is,_ and if you weren’t so insecure you’d see it too. Look, he _knows your Adderall schedule._ He knows what you’re like when you’ve fucked it up, and he knows how to calm you down when you’re angry and how to cheer you up when you’re down. And you do the same for him. You… you anchor him, and he anchors you, and you just make sense. So stop being an idiot,” she punches his arm, and Stiles figures their moment is over, now. “And climb him like a tree. Lord knows if you don’t I will.”

“Jackson?”

She makes a considering noise. “I love him, but God, have you seen Derek’s _legs?_ He could ask me to do anything while flexing those legs and I’d do it.”

Stiles groans. “I dream of those thighs.”

Lydia smiles, sweet and soft. “Why do you love him, Stiles?”

Not, ‘do you love him?’ or ‘could you love him?’ because he does. Lord help him, he does.

He’s silent for a long time. And then, “he’s sweet. And grumpy, but he cares more about people than anyone I’ve ever met. He makes me feel… special, but he makes me feel like exactly who I am, if that makes sense?” She nods. He waves his hands around. “He grounds me, but I don’t feel pinned down. Like, he can keep up with me, and I can keep up with him.” He shrugs, helplessly. “I just love him. I don’t know why. I just do.”

Lydia looks at him for a pregnant pause. Then, “I know. Honey, I know.”


	19. Have a n-ice (cream) day!

Lydia drives them to the soiree, because the thought of turning up to her mother’s soiree in a mint green Fiat 500 with eyelashes on the lights, parking among the limousines or whatever cars rich people are driving nowadays, was too delightful to pass up.

Her mother’s waiting outside for them, smiling and shaking hands with rich people, and her expression is caught between a smile and looking like she swallowed a bee that just bathed in lemon juice. The spasm in her facial muscles is, frankly, hilarious, but smooths itself over pretty quickly.

Lydia cackles from inside the car, loud enough it must be impossible to miss.

“I have a feeling,” Lydia says, being directed by a bored looking Asian guy to a parking space, “that tonight is going to be simply wonderful.”

Stiles agreed.

“Lydia,” her mother says when they get out the car and head towards the entrance. They do an awkward kiss on both cheeks, not quite touching, and somehow they make it look both stiff and smooth, all at once. Stiles doesn’t have half the grace that the Martins do, so he settles with kissing Miss Martin’s hand and waggling his eyebrows. He, honestly, has no idea how to greet her. Does he bow? Shake her hand? He was never taught this. He didn’t grow up in a castle, or wherever rich people live nowadays, he doesn’t know.

She gives him a cross between a smile and a grimace, and he’s pretty pleased with it.

“Mister Stilinski,” she grinds out. “I assumed Lydia would be bringing her partner. The lawyer?”

Stiles grins. “Mr. Stilinski is my dad,” he says. “It’s _Stiles._ ”

Miss Martin looks away from him. He’s having such a good time already, and they haven’t even walked through the front doors.

“Well,” Miss Martin sniffs. “You two are the last to arrive. _More_ than fashionably late, Lydia.”

Lydia smiles sweetly. “There was traffic,” she lies.

“Those are very tall heels,” Miss Martin says.

“They are,” Lydia says.

There’s a beat of silence, then another, then another.

“Well!” Stiles claps his hands together. “If we’re the last here, then there’s no reason to stand out here in the cold, freezing, and… stuff.”

It’s June, and it’s California, and it is not cold.

“I agree,” Miss Martin says. “No need to catch a chill.”

The soiree is some event to guilt rich people into giving Miss Martin’s foundation money so she could, like, build free schools somewhere in Africa, or something – or, more like give Miss Martin’s foundation so they could send over some college kids to somewhere in Africa for extra credits, and buy the materials while they sit in the Hampton's or wherever it is rich people hang out nowadays, and drink martinis.

Or whatever it is rich people drink nowadays.

Stiles can’t relate.

Lydia has pretty much only been invited because she’s Miss Martin’s daughter, and is pretty, and old men love to throw their money at beautiful young ladies. Miss Martin lives in the vain hope that Lydia will act like the fake Lydia she was back in high school, but she doesn’t. At all. Instead, she tends to get in heated debates and conversations about, like, math or whatever, because there is always inevitably some old math professor.

(To this day, Stiles isn’t really sure why Lydia didn’t pursue a career in math, although for all he knows that’s what she’s doing on the side of the bakery. Lydia is a book somehow both open and closed.)

He’s pretty uncomfortable pretty quickly. There’s a lot of people, here, and Stiles starts imagining all the ways he could humiliate himself. His heart rate picks up, a little.

Stiles is pretty much the arm candy, smiling and fidgeting while Lydia talks to pasty old folks.

“Stiles, honey,” Lydia smiles. “Go fidget somewhere else.”

He purses his lips, sneering sardonically at her, and goes to fidget somewhere else.

He snatches some weird, small food off a platter, and then snatches a few more and shoves them in his mouth while the waiter stands there stiffly and looks thrown.

“These are delicious,” Stiles tries to say, except that his mouth is full and he mostly just splutters… whatever it is that he’s eating over the waiter. Stiles tries to wipe the waiter down, but he shakes his head furiously and flees.

Stiles stares mournfully after him and the weird, small food. A waitress walks past and silently hands him a champagne flute. Stiles nods gratefully, and she raises an eyebrow at him. Scoffs, and walks away.

Stiles frowns, and would think ‘well, okay then’, expect he’s still got his mouth full and it would just end in more disaster.

He flees, and finds a set of French doors that look promising – that is, that they’re not in the main hall of the hotel – but when he pushes them open there’s a couple making out. A man and a woman, both surprisingly young looking, in their thirties maybe, and she’s sitting on the railings. He’s standing between her legs, and his hand is sliding further up her thigh, rucking up her dress, and –

Nope. Nope nope nope. He turns and flees, making sure not to slam the doors on his way back in.

He slumps against the wall next to the French doors, taking deep breaths. Stiles is freaked out, sure – he almost got caught perving on a couple, Jesus – but it was… hot? Which is definitely morally dubious, and makes him feel a bit dirty.

No. Dirty is the wrong word. Filthy? No. Jesus.

He shakes his head, banishing the thoughts. Stiles notices, then, a staircase opposite him. He shrugs, and goes up them, figuring they just lead up to the bedrooms, which are probably empty because of the whole soiree thing.

Also, locked, but he doesn’t think about that until he’s already halfway up the stairs, and damn it he’s come this far.

Stiles pushes fruitlessly at doors, tugging and pulling to no avail. Locked, and he has no key.

He scuffs his feet, going to kick at a wall and thinks better of it at the last moment, spinning awkwardly. He wants to sit on the floor, but Lydia would kill him if he rumpled the suit. So Stiles paces the corridor, bored and becoming increasingly agitated and annoyed.

Stiles sighs after a few minutes, defeated, and heads back downstairs. The noises from the soiree come back to him in layers, and soon he’s back in the main hall, hands shoved in his pockets.

It’s not hard to find Lydia, a dash of strawberry blonde against white and grey hair. He heads to her, places a hand on the small of the back, and asks to speak to her for a moment.

She gives him a hard look, nods, and pulls them aside.

“What’s wrong?” She asks, even though she probably already knows.

Stiles waves his hands around listlessly. “I’m really not comfortable here,” he says. “There’s-” he throws his hands around again, narrowly avoiding hitting the platter straight out of a waiter’s hands, and only then because the waiter is quick and jumps out Stiles’ way. Still, though, he throws Stiles a dirty look. Stiles sighs heavily.

Lydia purses her lips. “You’re right,” she says eventually. “It was probably cruel to drag you here with me. I didn’t think about your,” she waves her hand around in a smaller, more graceful gesture, and leaves the words ‘social anxiety’ hanging. Stiles frowns glumly.

“I really did want to be here tonight,” he says, and she smiles and says, “I know.”

They look away from each other for a moment, then Lydia asks, “how will you get home?”

Stiles chews on his lips. “I’ll ask someone to pick me up.”

She looks at him, then, and throws him a sly smile. “Derek?” She asks.

Stiles tries to hide his smile, but she catches it anyway. “Was thinking about it,” he says. “Shut up. Scott’s working tonight, and everyone else will be busy.” Another downside of the new hours at the cafe. Someone’s always busy, or has to get up too early to get out.

“Hmm,” Lydia says. “Well – I’ll see you then.”

Stiles nods, and Lydia reaches up – even in her heels, she’s short – and plants a kiss on his cheek.

“See you around,” she says again, and Stiles nods.

He steps outside, ignoring the look Miss Martin throws him, and takes out his phone.

**< <Can you pick me up? Soiree was quite bad**

The reply is instantaneous.

**> >What’s the address?**

Stiles doesn’t bother to try and hide his smile.


	20. Incake of emergency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's 23:55 but still today so whatever

Derek pulls up not twenty minutes later, and looks much more like he belongs in his Camaro – a sleek black thing that Stiles has definitely imagined having sex in (with Derek) and he’s not even ashamed. Who wouldn’t – than Lydia and he had.

Stiles is sitting on the steps in front of the entrance, playing idly on his phone, but when he hears the low rumble of Derek’s car he throws himself up and towards where Derek’s haphazardly stopped.

He rolls the window down, and Stiles is genuinely shocked that he’s not wearing his shades. He just feels like Derek should be.

“I’m shocked you’re not wearing your shades,” Stiles blurts.

“I have no idea what that means,” Derek frowns, and opens the passenger door.

Stiles climbs in enthusiastically. “Oh my God, dude, you’re a lifesaver. That soiree was so bad. I mean, it sucks because I was really excited and wanted to be there for Lydia, but when I’m around that many people I just get nervous and just humiliate myself all the time. Like, she sent me away because I wouldn’t stop moving, you know? And I shoved loads of food in my mouth and spat it over a waiter, which, what the fuck. And when I tried to find somewhere quiet I almost interrupted people _well on their way_ to having some X-rated fun. So when I tried _again_ all the doors were locked and I just hung about awkwardly. So I go to _Lydia,_ and I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry my dude but I have got to leave,’ and she’s like ‘yeah I shouldn’t have brought such an anxious mess’ which, you know, she didn’t actually say, get that look off your face, but then I almost knocked like twenty champagne flutes straight out of a waiter’s hands and then I just had to get out of there.” Stiles sighs, and slumps against the leather seat, hiding his face in his hands. “I’m such a mess,” he grumbles, words muffled.

Derek’s silent for a few seconds, and then pats Stiles’ back. “There, there,” he says, awkward and stilted, and Stiles laughs despite himself. Derek leaves his hand there for a few moments, but has to move it to the gears. His fingers hesitate against Stiles’ back.

“I just-” Stiles starts, and throws his hands in the air. “I’m so bad at these things, and they’re not even _hard,_ you know? Like, how do I manage to fuck these things up. I hate it. I just wish-”

He cuts himself off, swallows the words down. He looks down, and his chest feels suddenly and overwhelmingly heavy.

Derek throws a glance at him. Waits, to see if Stiles is going to continue, and when he doesn’t Derek says, “these things aren’t for everyone.”

“But they shouldn’t be this hard for me. I just… social anxiety is a bitch, you know?” Stiles is surprised at how upset he is.

“I know.”

They’re silent again, and Stiles looks out the window at the passing lights as they drive.

“Do you want me to take you home?” Derek says, but it doesn’t feel like he’s breaking the silence. Stiles is reminded of the wedding they’d gone to, the drive there.

Stiles chews on his lips nervously, and shakes his head. “No,” he says uselessly. “Keith is with that college-girl-across-the-hall, and I don’t…” He shrugs listlessly. “No,” he says again.

Derek doesn’t say anything, just wordlessly drives them to the edge of town, where there’s a lonely apartment block, dark and a little decrepit.

Stiles hasn’t been to Derek’s apartment before – they’ve hung out at Stiles’, and at the studio where Derek works, but never here. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that’s where they are, though.

“Huh,” Stiles says, opening the door.

Derek raises his eyebrows, and Stiles shrugs.

“Was just imagining more-” he wiggles his fingers. “Cobwebs, or something. Maybe some broken windows.”

“It’s dark,” Derek says, deadpan, “you can’t see it that well. And you haven’t seen the inside.”

He’s silent for a few beats, and then smiles so wide Stiles can see the white of his teeth even _in_ the dark.

“Well, consider me scared of interior design.” Stiles rubs his hands together. “After you.”

The building is surprisingly silent. “Does nobody live here?” Stiles asks.

Derek shrugs. “I let out one of the apartments to some old guy, Bernie, but he’s at his daughter’s right now, in Atlanta.”

“You – you _let out the apartments?_ ”

He shrugs again.

“I own the building,” he says, like that makes any more sense.

“I…” Stiles gapes. “How much money do you _have?_ God, and here I was thinking it was _Jackson_ I should have been kinder to.”

Derek flushes.

His apartment is apparently the _loft_ of the building, which of course means it’s right under the fucking roof, and _of course_ there’s no elevator since this building was built in, like, the 16 th century or something, so by the time Derek’s pulling his keys out his pocket and unlocking the front door Stiles is leaning against the wall, panting.

“Fuck,” he manages. “I’ve probably completely sweated through this suit. God, I’m disgusting. Ew.”

“You aren’t… you can shower, if you like,” Derek stumbles, and opens the door. “I can lend you some clothes.”

“You are a God-send,” Stiles says, grabbing Derek’s shoulder. “But please introduce your building to the modern day, and get a fucking elevator.”

Derek laughs. Stiles walks into the loft.

And gapes.

It’s… much nicer than Stiles would have imagined. The outside of the building is so creepy and heeby-jeebies inducing he sort of imagined it looking like a lair, but.

And it’s still pretty sparse, sure, but Derek flicks a light switch and apparently there are lights _everywhere_ , hanging low from the ceiling.

There’s a couch, a soft blue, that looks like it’s made for Stiles’ ass to plomp down on, so that’s what he does.

The coffee table looks old, but sturdy, a dark oak thing with scratches and mug stains, and he can see a large dining table underneath the _wall of windows._ There’s a bookcase overflowing with old and worn books, spines bent and covers faded, and Derek apparently has so many that it looks like you couldn’t pull one out if you tried. There’s a spiral staircase, and there is also, surprisingly, a TV, large and wall-mounted, and an Xbox with a couple games. Stiles considers looking through them, but quickly realises that that would require getting up from the couch, and fuck it is comfortable.

Derek had vanished somewhere, but comes back holding two mugs of coffee. “Thought you might like this,” he says, and looks at his feet.

Stiles grins. “I love you, man,” he says, and makes grabby hands until Derek gives him one of the mugs – yellow, with white polka dots – and sits next to him on the couch. Their knees touch.

Stiles mellows pretty quickly, smelling the coffee but not drinking it, not yet. He’s hit, again, with the overwhelming urge to just spill his guts to Derek, and he thinks about his conversation with Lydia. He really _doesn’t_ want to sabotage his friendship with Derek, but every time they’re in one of these quiet, private places, his heart hurts so much he thinks it might burst.

He chews on his lip, and drinks the coffee. They drink in silence.

When they’re done, they put their mugs on the coffee table and lean back, and look at each other.

“I’m in love with you,” Stiles says, except it comes out like, “you should really invest in coasters.”

Derek stares at him, and says, “you want to shower now? I’ll show you where everything is.”

“I’ve been in love with you for three years,” Stiles says, except it comes out like, “yeah.”

Derek stands, and walks down a corridor Stiles hadn’t seen. Stiles stands, too, and follows him.

He opens a door and flicks on the light, and it’s a fairly nondescript bathroom. A shower, toilet and sink with a cabinet with a mirror above it. There’s a cupboard under the sink, and Derek points to it.

“Towels are in there,” he says. “Wait here a second, I’ll get you something to put on so you don’t wander around in just a towel.”

He turns to leave, and Stiles tries again, “I want to spend my life with you,” except he chokes on the words. Stiles bites down on his lip so hard he tastes blood.


	21. I knead you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fml at me for writing such a crappy little chapter but i've been working on this other wip and then remembering like twenty others i've been """""""working on""""""" and all the school work i said i'd do over the weekend. also there's a bug going round and i have so much shit coming up soon and i will, inevitably, get rly sick and still have to do all the things cuz i'll cry if i miss any of it so like basically these coming months already fucking suck. also!! i changed my theme on tumblr bc people were having problems following me, so if you're not following me you should??

The water beats down on Stiles’ back, hot and scalding, and with Derek gone he can forget the hand wrapped around his heart, squeezing tight.

He moans, instead, and wonders why he’s never come to Derek’s loft before – the water pressure is to _die_ for. If he doesn’t completely ruin his friendship with Derek, he’s coming here more often.

(Hell, maybe even if he ruins their friendship. He can get a key cut, Derek doesn’t need to know.)

Stiles lets himself stand under the spray, making no real effort to clean himself – just letting the water wash off the sweat and grime on its own – until the water starts to turn cold. He turns the shower off, because he really doesn’t feel like freezing his balls off.

Briskly, Stiles dries himself off – God, even the towels are perfect, soft and fluffy – and throws himself into the clothes Derek had shoved in his arms. It’s just basketball shorts, a tank top, and briefs – and Stiles flushes dark at the realization he’s going to be _wearing Derek’s underwear,_ oh God, and wouldn’t Lydia get a rush out of this – that hang low on his hips and, even though Derek and him have roughly equally broad shoulders, Derek is still a lot more built than Stiles, and the tank top hands loose on him. It’s a little embarrassing, and Stiles wraps his arms tight around himself.

“I should start working out more,” he mutters, and laughs at himself. “Yeah, okay, sure.”

Stiles doesn’t look himself in the mirror, because he really doesn’t want to see how ridiculous he must look, but he does go rummaging. Because he’s not a good person, or something like that, and he’s totally okay with that.

There’s nothing mind blowing in the cabinet – some contacts, and Stiles has known for a while Derek doesn’t have the best eyesight, toothpaste and the rest of that boring shit – and the cupboard has two shelves. One with a single towel – Stiles had used the other one, which is now awkwardly scrunched up on the floor and he doesn’t know exactly what to do with it – and the other with deodorant, cologne, tampons, and-

Um.

Stiles double takes at the tampons. He… does not have a girlfriend. Does he? Oh God, he totally does, and he was _totally lying_ when he said he was single – or maybe this is a super recent thing? Derek and he are bros. Bros tell each other about these things. Or maybe not so soon? Stiles’ only point of reference is Scott, who’s… well, _Scott._ There’s only been Allison.

Oh God, and Stiles had been about to spill his guts to him, and all, and here he is with tampons in his cupboard that _Stiles had been mooching through,_ and what an asshole he is. What was he hoping to find? What could there possibly be to find? Tampons, obviously, and why would he want to find those?

Maybe it’s a good thing, Stiles tries to rationalize. So he doesn’t do something – so he doesn’t embarrass himself, or anything. At least he won’t live in vain hope any more, or anything.

Stiles sits on the cold tile floor. Breathes in. Breathes out.

He looks at the box of tampons again.

Blinks.

Looks at it again.

He unlocks the door, and practically throws himself out of it. Derek’s sat on the couch, flicking through the TV with a bored expression on his face, which quickly falls into surprise, then confusion, at seeing Stiles marching towards him, waving an unopened box of tampons in his face.

“Why do you have an unopened box of tampons?” Stiles demands, and winces at how loud his voice is.

So does Derek. He frowns. “For… when my sisters visit? They. Always get grouchy. When I don’t… have any.” He’s looking at Stiles like he’s never seen him before.

“Not for some secret girlfriend you’re keeping secret from me?”

“No?”

Stiles stares at him. Takes a deep breath, and drops the tampons.

Derek does not have a girlfriend.

He takes another deep breath, and another.  _Derek does not have a girlfriend._ He wasn't lying, and he didn't find a girl in the days since the mall.

Stiles thinks about Derek asking him to coffee. Derek doesn't ask him places. He doesn't ask him to coffee. But he did, after three and a half years. And he'd spent an entire day driving Stiles to a wedding, and helping him put together a cake, and sat with him through the wedding with his hand burning into Stiles' thigh, and driven him back. He thinks about all the times Derek has let Stiles stay in his studio, doing work or doing nothing, just watching, or just sleeping, and he thinks about how the sun hits Derek's face at different times of day, and he thinks about how the sun would hit Derek's face in Stiles' bed, in the early mornings and in the evenings, when the sky is burning and fading fast.

He thinks about the way he can pick up on Derek's expressions in ways no one else can, thinks about how Derek  _lets_ him. About how he lets Stiles see parts of Derek he doesn't let anyone else see - and not in an explicitly sexual way, but the vulnerability, the way that Derek opens himself to Stiles, has his heart beating faster anyway, has his palms sweating. He thinks about how stiff and stoic Derek was, when they first met, how he ordered black coffee the first few times with a voice like he was crunching glass between his teeth - between his stupid bunny teeth that Stiles loves - and how he'd flushed when Stiles had raised his eyebrows and asked him what he  _really_ wanted to order.

He thinks about how Derek knows how he gets when he's fucked up his Adderall schedule, and how Derek always spends a little more time when he's making shit for old people. He thinks about how Derek had fixed Stiles' shelves after he'd come over one time and noticed they were shitty and probably like eighty years old, and how they'd spent the rest of the day watching shitty TV and how Keith had curled in Derek's lap and refused to move, and he thinks about how Derek hates spicy food but will never say, and he thinks about how he's letting out an apartment to some old guy called Bernie and he thinks about how there's so much about Derek that he knows, and so much he doesn't, and that he really wants to know it all.

“Fuck it,” he says, and throws himself in Derek’s lap.

He kisses him.


	22. I candycide what I want

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going to manchester tomorrow and i was supposed to make lunch tonight and put it in the fridge for tomorrow but i'm stupid and forgot and also i'm fucking tired. so i'm rushing this to put it out quickly (there's probably so many mistakes) so i can go to sleep early and maybe wake up earlier to make smth to eat, idk. also unmoving apparently isn't a word but fuck you!!!! i do what i want!!!!!!!!

Derek’s hands fly up to Stiles’ waist, holding him upright as he immediately overbalances and tips dangerously to the side. Other than that, Derek doesn’t react. He doesn’t move at all.

Stiles pulls away as soon as he realizes Derek isn’t responding.

“Um,” he says, flushing a deep red. Fuck, he’s ruined it. He’s. “Let’s just pretend that-”

Derek keeps one hand on his waist – and thank God, really, because Stiles really would just topple over without it for how all the blood is draining from his face – but lifts the other to cup Stiles’ cheek, thumb gently brushing his cheekbone and pushing hair out of his face. Derek’s smile is sudden and blinding, and he – softly, softly – pulls Stiles into another kiss. This one is slow, and sweet, with no heat, but Stiles can feel it all the way to his toes.

Derek’s hand on his waist moves to the small of Stiles’ back, and pulls him closer, so their chests are flush and Stiles is more comfortable. He can put less strain on his thighs this way, and he’s grateful for it because his knees are weak and he doesn’t trust himself not to just collapse.

The kiss stays slow and subtle, even with the closer contact – there’s not even tongue, and maybe this isn’t the kiss of Stiles’ wet dreams but it’s better, because it’s real and it’s them.

Stiles doesn’t know how long they stay like that, Derek holding him close and kissing softer than Stiles entirely knows how, but when they pull away Stiles whines embarrassingly loud. Derek…

Derek is something to behold. He’s flushed, cheeks rosy and glowing, lips pink and eyes hooded and blown up. He looks –

Beautiful. He looks beautiful like this, and Stiles wonders what other faces Derek has that he hasn’t seen yet.

More than anything, Stiles wants to find out. He’s desperate to, so needy it almost hurts.

Stiles lifts a finger to Derek’s face, runs the back of it down against his temple, across his eyelid and the ridge of his nose, along his jawline and rests his thumb against Derek’s parted lips.

“That…” Stiles tries, but he chokes on the words. This time, he doesn’t mind so much. He thinks Derek gets it, anyway.

Derek smiles, soft and small and private. He nods. “Yeah,” he says, and nods again.

Stiles leans forward, resting his forehead against Derek’s and breathes him in. “Yeah.” he says.

They’re silent for a few moments, still and heady, and Stiles looks up at Derek through his lashes, biting his lip and suddenly shy.

“Hey,” Derek whispers, because nothing outside of Stiles-and-Derek exists right now. Stiles can feel Derek’s heartbeat, where his hand comes up to rest against his chest. There’s no need for loud noises.

“Hi,” Stiles murmurs uselessly. He rests his head in the nook of Derek’s neck.

“Why were you rooting through my bathroom?” Derek’s lips brush against the shell of Stiles’ ear.

“Er-” Stiles says, and flails so hard he narrowly avoids braining himself on the coffee table as he crashes to the ground with a loud noise. “Ow.”

Derek just laughs, and leaves him to it. Steps over Stiles and heads to the kitchen. “Coffee?” He asks, and like on cue Stiles yawns.

“No,” he says, Stiles-and-Derek broken for the moment, and he’s thrown back into the loft. He crawls back onto the sofa. “I should probably head home and sleep.”

“Lydia drove you to the soiree, didn’t she?” Derek calls from the kitchen, over the sound of a faucet running. “So your jeep is at home.”

Stiles frowns.

“You can stay here,” Derek sighs. “I’m saying you can stay here, tonight.”

“Oh!” Stiles says. “Oh. No, that’s okay. Could you drop me off at home?” He doesn’t really want to go home. He feels on edge there, like there’s something thunderous beneath his skin. It’s not that he doesn’t like his apartment – he does, but it happens, sometimes. He gets listless, sometimes.

Derek comes back, and leans against the doorway leading to the kitchen. “It’s fine, Stiles,” he says. “You’re staying here.”

Stiles guesses he’s staying here.

They stare at each other for a few moments, and Derek lifts one corner of his mouth. Time passes, and they stare at each other, unmoving and unwilling to move.

But the kettle screams, and they move.

Stiles is startled, jumping, and Derek chuckles, a low and deep rumble, and goes back into the kitchen.

Stiles bites his lips and crosses his legs, picking at the hem of the basketball shorts. He tries, but he can’t contain the smile that blooms wide across his face.

Derek comes back, a minute later, holding two mugs – he holds one out to Stiles and sits next to him, and when Stiles smells it, it smells almost woody. Stiles takes a sip, and the flavor is so subtle he can’t identify it.

Derek shrugs. “I found this tea shop. Thought I’d give it a shot.”

“It’s good.”

“Yeah?”

Stiles nods.

They’re sitting, thighs pressed against each other and shoulders knocking, and Derek turns on the TV, flicking through until they land on an old, black and white TV show that’s being marathoned. The tea is finished by the first episode, and Stiles’ thigh is jiggling. He bites his lip until he tastes blood, forcing himself to hold still, but he can’t help it. He’s nervous.

By the third episode, his eyes are closing, and Derek is a warm and comforting line against his side. He rests his head against Derek’s shoulder.

By the fourth episode, Stiles takes a deep breath and creeps his hand towards where Derek’s is resting against his own thigh. Stiles extends his pinky, brushing it against the knuckle of Derek’s, and when Derek doesn’t move away he links their pinkies, then tangles all their fingers properly. Rests his palm against Derek’s palm. It makes him blush a little too much.

Derek turns to him, smiling softly, and presses a kiss against Stiles’ lips. His insides flutter. This is different, and this is the same, and this is different. Something warms deep inside of him, somewhere he didn’t know was cold.

Stiles falls asleep like that, with their hands tangled and his cheek against Derek’s shoulder, and wakes up lying on the couch with a thick blanket over him and drool drying on the side of his face. He flushes, and squints his eyes against the sunlight that filters in through the windows. The smell of eggs, bacon and coffee is thick in the air, and Stiles smiles.

Derek comes in a few minutes later, holding a plate laden with food, knife and fork resting precariously on the plate, and a mug (teal, this time, with the lower half of the handle snapped off. Stiles wonders where he gets all these mugs from) and puts them on the coffee table in front of Stiles. Runs his hands through Stiles’ hear.

“I’m gonna shower,” Derek says, and his voice is sleep-rough. Stiles nods, and starts towards the plate, stomach rumbling. Derek laughs.

They don’t talk about it.


	23. I couldn't love you less oven if I tried

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> manchester was so incredibly draining so this is shit but you know what? whatever. also i wanted the title to be like "don't go breaking my heart (i couldn't oven if i tried)" but that's just not even the lyrics and i'm really generally let down. also edinburgh university looks so good as well? i'm going to book an open day when they're available but it's up in fucking scotland let me die

The don’t talk about it. But things do shift.

Derek still comes to the bakery – Stiles doesn’t see him as often because of the schedule change from hell, but Lydia gave him as many Derek Hours as she could – and still orders his caramel latte, and they still hang out as normal, but they…

Don't talk about it.

It’s mid June, just a little over a week since they kissed the first time, and the bakery is empty. Stiles takes the time to rearrange the croissants, and rearrange them again, and flick through the photo album in the back room and smile fondly at the picture of him ‘tripping’ and sending a carton of eggs all over Erica. Good times. He’s so clumsy.

The bell rings – and fuck, does he hate that bell when the bakery gets busy – and Stiles sighs mournfully. Goodbye photo album. He’ll look through it again in a couple months, when it’s gathered dust.

Stiles purses his lips, and looks at the door leading up front. He’s the only one working today – and even with the shift change everyone else seems to get to work together, which is just unfair. He does not cause that much trouble when he’s working with someone else, the whole wasabi thing was a one-time thing, honestly – so he’s going to have to deal with the customer, but _eugh._

He stands, stretches and smiles at the satisfying click of his back, and makes his way up front, lips already moving around the _‘welcome to Lydia’s’_ spiel.

The words die in his throat, though, when he sees Derek. His face splits into a grin, and he probably looks stupid, but whatever. They’re, like, kissing now. Stiles doesn’t see how you can kiss Derek and not lose your shit every time you see him.

It doesn’t matter how he looks, because Derek smiles back, the same as he did before the whole… thing, that they don’t seem to talk about.

“What’s up?” Stiles asks, and Derek opens his mouth. “Oh my God, I just remembered. Sorry, sorry, but Lydia was thinking about getting a new coffee machine. _A new coffee machine._ Apparently she has a bunch of money in her savings and was thinking about, like, ‘spicing up the bakery’ or whatever, which is cool and all but why would we update the coffee machine? It works fine. Look, it’s great – oh, oh fuck. I’m going to ignore that. I get off soon anyway – not like that, but you probably didn’t even think about it like that, did you? – anyway, I get off soon so Boyd can deal with – that. I’m going to ignore it. So I said to her – here’s your coffee, by the way – I said to her, ‘Lydia, this is a bakery. Should we not invest more money in things related to baking?’ Like, we need a new oven. Ours is fine, but I’d just like a new one, just because. And she’s always complaining that we – here’s your change, dude – that we treat this place more like a cafe than a bakery, which I _get._ Like, I bake all the fucking time and people just come in here for coffee. No offence, uh, yeah. But anyway, I just think we need an oven more than we – mmph!”

Derek had reached over the counter and pulled Stiles close to him – almost over the counter, what the fuck – and kissed him, slow and sweet, one hand curled around the back of his head and the other stroking his cheek, and that’s a thing, with Derek, the whole cheek-stroking thing, and apparently it’s something that Stiles is very, very into.

When he gets his bearings, Stiles’ hands curl in the front of Derek’s top – an old grey henley that’s soft to the touch – and he thinks he could spend forever like that, just… kissing Derek.

The bell rings, and Boyd coughs. He has a very distinct cough.

They pull apart, and Stiles will deny that he chased Derek’s lips for a second before realizing what had just happened, and his ears grow hot.

“Oh, my God,” he mutters darkly. “I could kill him.”

Derek just smiles, smaller and more shy than before, and runs a hand through Stiles’ hair. “Take a walk with me,” he says, and Stiles nods enthusiastically. He’s suddenly and overwhelmingly grateful for Lydia changing the rota.

Stiles doesn’t think he’s ever gotten ready to leave quicker, shoving his apron into his locker so hard it shakes and his hand aches a little, and he considers fixing his hair in the mirror Lydia put up the other week (well, had Boyd put up, because he seems to just be good at everything, including mirror mounting, or whatever) but he’d probably spend an hour fussing with his hair.

It really is perfect weather for a walk. Theoretically.

Stiles can’t tell if the flush high on his cheeks is due to the sun or the way the sun hits Derek, and his ice cream melts all over his wrist and even though he licks up what he can, his hand is still uncomfortably sticky (“and not in a sexy way,” he helpfully informs Derek, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here for a moment).

They’re walking around the lake, catching the cool breeze off of it, and their conversation has lulled to a comfortable quiet. They listen to the sounds of the park around them, and just walk.

Stiles keeps throwing Derek quick glances, and if the way Derek raises his eyebrows and doesn’t bother to hide his smirk, Stiles isn’t subtle about it. He purses his lips, considering.

They haven’t talked about it. Put a name to whatever they are, whatever they’re doing.

Derek stops, and looks at him. Stiles stops, too, and looks at him, too.

They haven’t talked about it.

Derek’s hands cup Stiles’ face, and they kiss, short and chaste, and Stiles feels it in his fingertips. They pull away smiling.

They haven’t put a name to whatever they are. Whatever they’re doing.

They start walking again, back towards town, and Stiles’ fingers twitch. He brushes the backs of his knuckles against Derek’s, and before he can think twice about it, grabs Derek’s hand. Tries and fails to hide his smile as Derek’s fingers curl around his.

They keep walking, hand in hand, and Stiles curses the weather and his own, fluttering heart because his hands are definitely sweaty, and it’s definitely gross, but Derek doesn’t say a thing.

They don’t talk about it.


	24. Donut go gently into that good night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gosh everything just gets to be a lot sometimes also i forgot about this but woah i did it in time.

They don’t talk about it. But Stiles thinks that’s okay.

Lydia does not.

“Stiles,” she says, low and a little dangerous, rubbing her forehead. “Can you please,” her voice is strained, “take your Derek and go. You’re useless. We have customers.” They do, in fact, have customers, and Stiles has been studiously ignoring them in favor of smiling dopily at ‘his Derek’.

“Are you saying I can leave early?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes!” She snaps, waving a towel at him (he may have spilled coffee because he wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing. It’s not his fault – Derek is incredibly distracting). “Please! Go! I can feel my business dying the longer you stand here.”

Stiles grins. He should be useless more often, if it scores him extra Derek Hours (and, fuck, he hates that phrase).

Lydia would probably fire him, but it would be totally worth it.

“I’ll see you later then. And I’ll see you,” he points at Derek, “in a minute. Don’t go wandering anywhere.”

Derek rolls his eyes.

Stiles barely shuts his locker before he’s barreling back out and sliding into the booth Derek’s sat at. “What’s been going on?”

“Oh, in the twenty seconds you’ve been gone?” Derek raises his eyebrows. “God, you know, not much. What-” Derek’s phone dings, and he stares at it, the color fading from his face.

“What?” Stiles asks. “What, what what.” He nudges Derek’s shins under the table.

“The world is ending,” Derek says. “DEFCON 1. We should probably leave town.”

“Your sisters are visiting?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, man,” Stiles smiles. “I haven’t seen them in _ages._ When are they coming up? Oh my God, this is awesome. How long are they staying for? Are they already done with South America? When are they coming up?”

Derek’s face grows darker the longer Stiles talks. He mumbles something that Stiles doesn’t catch.

“Use your words, Derek,” Stiles says. Derek scowls.

“They’re already here.”

“They’re – seriously? Let’s go. I’ll bring them some donuts. You – you can pay for them. They’re your sisters.”

“I do not like you.”

Stiles grins.

They grab a dozen donuts – Stiles made them this morning, and they’re fucking delicious – in a few different flavors. Derek and Cora have very specific favorites – Derek likes the coffee ones, which, what the fuck even, and Cora likes the powdered ones – but Stiles and Laura like _all of the flavors._

“If I’d known they were coming up, I’d have made different flavors,” Stiles pouts, when they’re outside the bakery. “I’ve been experimenting with some different recipes. They could have been my lab rats.”

“You are not getting upset over donuts right now. Also, do not experiment with my sisters,” Derek says, deadpan. “Wait. That’s not-”

“Are they at the loft? Are you going to see them now?” Stiles asks. “Can I come?”

Derek looks a little flustered. “I. Yes. You can. Yeah.”

“Deep breaths, Der,” Stiles says, testing out the name. For as long as he’s known Derek, he’s never felt comfortable calling him Der. Or, he is totally comfortable calling him Der, but Derek hates it.

“Don’t call me Der,” Derek says. “I hate that.” They get in the Camaro, and Stiles still thinks about having sex in here. Maybe he should talk to Derek about it. Not that – not that they’ve done anything more than kiss. He should build up to it.

Stiles grins. “Breathe with me, okay? Did they not teach you breathing exercises in anger management?”

“I did not-” Derek turns to Stiles. _“_ _I did not go to anger management.”_

“That tone of eyebrow begs to differ.”

Derek shakes his head. “I don’t get you,” he says, and scowls when Stiles pokes at his face. “Stop poking at my face. I hate that.” He grabs at Stiles’ hand.

“You love that.”

Derek turns to Stiles, and he’s not quite smiling, but there’s a hint of something there. “Shut up,” he says, and lets go of Stiles’ hand.

He reluctantly pulls his hand back, shoving it in his lap to stop from fidgeting (or to try and stop. It doesn’t really work out so well).

Derek sighs, reaches over and puts his hand on Stiles’ thigh. Stiles grins at Derek, who studiously ignores him.

“I can’t wait to see your sisters, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude.”

“It’s been so long!”

“You’ve said this already. In fact, I’ve think you’ve said every comment you may have about my sisters already, so you may as well not say anything.”

“I-” Stiles gapes, closes his mouth. “That wasn’t awfully nice. I’m telling your sisters.”

“I’m going to take you to the desert. No one will find your body.” Derek sounds a little too thoughtful.

Stiles doesn’t bother hiding his smile. He’s so gone on this man and his death threats.

They pull up, a few minutes later, in front of the loft, and it’s as creepy now as it was the night they first kissed (Stiles hasn’t actually been here since, which is a shame, because he’s definitely fantasized about making out in all the other rooms in a – sort of – PG christening-the-house sort of thing.

Not that the loft needs christening. That is, because Derek already… lives there. Not because he thinks Derek has had copious sex there already. Oh, God, he might have. Stiles isn’t going to think about that. Well, he probably should – in an informative, ‘we should know about each others’ sexual history!’ sort of way, and not in, like, a ‘you’ve slept with so many other people and I’m going to judge you for it’ sort of way. Because he wouldn’t! He – yeah, okay, he’s cutting himself off now.)

Stiles feels a little badass stepping out of the Camaro, because it’s a badass car, and he wishes he had shades to pull off his face right about now. Or the suit again. God, why didn’t he utilize the suit to look badass when he had the chance? Stiles is full of regret.

He reaches for Derek’s hand – and he loves that he can do that, now – but stops halfway, hand twitching awkwardly. Stiles pulls it back quickly, but Derek catches the movement anyway, because he catches everything.

Derek raises his eyebrows.

“I – do your. Um.” Stiles tries. Breaths in and out, carefully. “Do they know about…” he doesn’t know what to say next, if he should say ‘about us,’ or if there really is a Derek-and-him.

Derek rolls his eyes, and grabs Stiles’ hand. Stiles smiles, and brings his other hand up to cup around the back of Derek’s.

“You’re an idiot,” Derek says, and Stiles grins and says, “but I’m your idiot,” because he doesn’t know what to call them yet, but he thinks that’s okay. If the way Derek squeezes his hand is anything to go by, maybe it is okay.

They don’t need to talk about it.


	25. Let's make memoryes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want death always at all times also if my spelling of doughnut has changed it's because i'm dumb and need to go back and edit previous chapters but i'm !!! so busy with school lately.  
> edit 17.03.17 - i changed all the doughnuts to donuts because i feel it's a simpler spelling which is just an american thing really. donut? idk. but simpler spelling? certainly.  
> also, dunkin' donuts or whatever it is. uses donuts. so. i'm just using observation!!

They need to talk about it.

Like, quite desperately.

Stiles can hear Laura and Cora before they even step into the loft – and he’s pretty sure those doors are meant to be, like, soundproof or something; in any case, they’re fucking thick metal doors – and he can practically taste his own heart.

Derek frowns at him.

“What’s wrong with you?” He asks, sensitive as ever. “You’ve met my sisters before.”

“Not as-” Stiles waves his free hand around – now clutching Derek’s hand desperately - “not as whatever we are! I can’t do this. I’m going to go home. Goodbye forever.” Derek just rolls his eyes.

“They already know you’re here,” Derek says, and Stiles says, “what,” because those doors are not thin, and Stiles was _trying_ to be quiet.

“I don’t get it,” Stiles hisses. “What is with that. Are these doors not as thick as I thought they were? Or,” Stiles narrows his eyes. “Oh. You totally told them I was coming, didn’t you. I mean, I can hear them through these big ol’ doors,” he knocks on the doors for good measure, and the reverb is loud. “They’re not that thick. Or, like, sound carries eerily well. I don’t care." Stiles does care, and will probably find the blueprints of the apartment building tonight. "Also, what am I going to say to your sisters.” 

“Stiles,” Derek says, and pulls Stiles flush against his chest.

“W-what?” Stiles asks, staring at Derek’s lips. He ducks in for a quick kiss that still leaves Stiles’ toes curling.

Derek doesn’t pull away, not exactly – trails his lips along Stiles’ jaw, against the shell of his ear. Stiles shivers.

“Shut the fuck up,” he whispers.

Stiles pushes Derek away, punching him in the chest. “Oh, fuck you,” he says, and Derek laughs.

The door slides open, and an unimpressed-looking Laura is on the other side, blank faced. “Are you two done?” She asks. “Because I’m really craving donuts.”

“I-” Stiles looks at Derek, who just waves his phone in Stiles’ face.

“These exist,” Derek says, and Stiles yells, “when! When did you text them!”

Laura’s face wavers, and finally cracks as she curls into herself laughing. “I can’t do it,” she cries. “Stiles,” she says seriously, face carefully blank again. “We’re werewolves.”

There’s silence for a few beats.

“Fuck all of you,” Stiles says.

Derek rolls his eyes. “I texted them while I was driving.”

“That’s worse than werewolves!”

“There was a red light.”

“There was no – there was a red light. God,” he shoves at Derek, and then Laura. “Stressing me out like this, my heart can’t handle it.”

“You’re too sensitive.”

“You’re too insensitive of my fragile, fragile feelings.”

“Stiles,” Laura snaps. He stands to attention. “Two things. One,” she holds up a finger. “Why are we standing outside the loft? There’s a perfectly good loft inside. Inside the. Fuck, that sentence did not go where I wanted it to.”

“Laura,” Derek sighs.

“And two!” She holds up two fingers. “It’s been months. Why are my arms empty of Stiles?”

Stiles grins, and lunges forward, wrapping his arms tight around her. Laura is weirdly tall – taller than Derek, even – and he fits snugly under her chin. It’s very comfortable, and her boobs squish against his chest like two cushions.

“That was weird,” Stiles grumbles. “I just called your boobs cushions in my head. Like two little hug cushions.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my boobs,” Laura says, and kisses the top of Stiles’ head. He feels so small, but in a cozy sort of way. Laura’s arms are strong and firm, and she fits snugly against him.

Laura gives the _best_ hugs. Derek should take lessons from her.

They pull away, and Derek’s already walked into the loft, and him and Cora are lounging on the couch like they’ve been there for a thousand years. Half a donut is hanging out of Cora’s mouth as she tries – and fails – to speak through it, managing only to spit crumbs onto Derek’s face.

He’s scowling, wiping furiously and continuously at his face. Cora does not stop speaking, and she does not stop spitting.

She looks up and sees Stiles, brows furrowing, and goes back to speaking and spitting.

Laura rolls her eyes and grabs a donut from them.

“You two are disgusting,” she says, and shoves the whole donut in her mouth.

“You amaze me,” Stiles says.

Laura and Cora look _good,_ really – though the Hale Hotness is a perpetual thing, and they all catch the sun easily and well, they’re both positively bronze, from where he can see their skin. Which is pretty much everywhere – they’re both wearing tank tops, and though Cora’s wearing a long, blue skirt that brushes her ankles, Laura’s wearing cut-off denim shorts, her long legs smooth and slim, draping over Derek’s lap where she’s sprawled on the couch. Laura’s hair is, if anything, longer, pulled up at the top of her head, and seems lighter, with a purple hue (“it’s chalk,” she said, twirling it around her finger. “I don’t think it suits me,” and she’s probably right, but Stiles knows not much at all about hair), but Cora’s cropped hers short, to her chin, and it’s as dark as ever.

They don’t leave much room for Stiles – they all take up _so much room –_ so he sits on the floor between Derek’s legs, gorging on donuts as Derek passes them down, and they listen to Laura and Cora talking animatedly about South America. Listen as they talk about them pushing each other into Lake Atitlan, the gang war they’d almost got caught up in (they’d got out of it by climbing into the back of a van that was transporting cocaine through Peru, and they’d jumped off a few miles from Machu Picchu, a story Stiles would not believe if it had come from anyone but Laura and Cora), and the parties they’d gate crashed in Mexico (“and she woke up, and boom. Her hair was gone, and she got a tattoo on her-” “Shut up! I hate you. She got a tattoo of a unicorn and blew our money on fucking tarot card readings.”)

Stiles smiles, resting his head against Derek’s knee, and chokes on his (third) donut when Cora asks, “so, are you guys dating, or what?”

Derek pats his back uselessly.

“No,” Stiles rushes, and then cringes. “We’re just two… dudes… hanging out. And. Holding hands. And kissing, and… stuff.”

“Oh my God,” Derek groans.

“Oh my God,” Cora laughs.

“Oh my God, Cora,” Laura says. “You can’t just ask people if they’re dating!”

Cora laughs harder, and Stiles wonders how many deaths-by-donuts have been recorded.


	26. It's not even my birthday (but he wanna lick the icing off)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES I KNOW i posted this without editing or a chapter name BUT I POSTED IT ON THE 17TH JUST ABOUT spo that's why fuck oyu

When Stiles first gets the news, he cries.

Really, tears spring to his eyes, and he’s secure enough in his prowess as a strong male figure to admit that he cried.

He calls Scott to tell him the news, because Scott is still his brother, and should know first.

“ _I bet you cried when she told you,”_ is the first thing Scott says, bleary, because he’s a fake friend.

“No,” Stiles says. “I did not cry, because I am a strong male figure who does not cry.”

“ _Okay,”_ Scott yawns. _“Sounds fake, but okay.”_

He calls Lydia next, just because he knows she’ll be asleep.

“ _If you’re calling to celebrate,”_ Lydia growls as soon as she picks up, _“do not. Because it is five in the morning, and now I won’t be able to go back to sleep, so I’m going to fire you.”_

Stiles makes the vocal equivalent of ‘!!’ anyway, because he’s so not buying Lydia’s threats.

“ _Go to the shop,”_ Lydia says, _“and pick up your things. I’ll send your final check through the mail, don’t bother_ _coming in to_ _collect it.”_

“See you tomorrow!” Stiles grins, because tomorrow is Tuesday and Lydia likes to drop by on Tuesdays to reminisce over the photo album.

“ _No I won’t,”_ Lydia sings, and hangs up.

“She will,” Stiles grins to the dial tone. He sends Erica and Boyd a text instead of calling them, because while he fears Lydia a little bit he figures their long-lasting friendship will spare him (also, he tells her about all the making out he and Derek do, and while she’s impatient for more, less PG activities – and, why is she more concerned about his sex life than Stiles is – he lives in hope that the details will spare any real wrath. He did, after all, wake her up just past five in the morning, which isn’t a real time, and once Lydia wakes up she can’t go back to sleep) but he has zero faith in Erica and Boyd. Besides, they have a group chat (called ‘BLUE REPTILES ARE NOT SEXY, a name that requires about eight levels of meta understanding to even begin grasping. And they have nicknames), and it’s just a bit convenient, really.

**BLUE REPTILE FUCKER: !!!!!!!!!**

Boyd responds instantly.

**COCO DADDY: I know. :)**

Boyd, while having zero sense of emojis in real life – and, oh God, they’re called facial expressions and emotions, and Stiles just thought of them as _real life emojis_ – always adds an emoji to every text he sends. It’s weird, jarring, and terrifyingly disillusioning.

**BLUE REPTILE FUCKER: Why are you awake!! NEWFOUND FREEDOM AND SLEEP!!**

**COCO DADDY: I’m up now. I’m going to the gym with Derek. :)**

**BLUE REPTILE FUCKER: :(((( also how did you get Derek to agree to go to the gym with you?? I’m not sure he exists this early in the morning**

**COCO DADDY: You only think that because you don’t exist this early in the morning. You’re like a newfound baby. No sense of object permanence. :/**

**COCO DADDY: Newborn** o.O**

**BLUE REPTILE FUCKER: Did you ever get sex ed**

**COCO DADDY: Yes. And sex. Which is more than you’re getting, Stilinski. >:(**

**EGGPLANT SWEATDROPS WEARY OK: BOTH OF YOU DIE!!!!!!**

**EGGPLANT SWEATDROPS WEARY OK: im so displeased with you all**

**EGGPLANT SWEATDROPS WEARY OK: ill never get beauty sleep with you two in my lifesaver**

**EGGPLANT SWEATDROPS WEARY OK: life.**

**BLUE REPTILE FUCKER: Lord knows you so desperately need your beauty sleep, Reyes**

**EGGPLANT SWEATDROPS WEARY OK: :(((((**

**EGGPLANT SWEATDROPS WEARY OK: noo!!! >:((( im angry i know not sadness. also guess what!!!!!!**

**BLUE REPTILE FUCKER: What??**

**EGGPLANT SWEATDROPS WEARY OK: im going to fucking kill you. see you tomorrow, fucker**

**COCO DADDY: :D**

**BLUE REPTILE FUCKER: :(**

Stiles laughs, and scratches his belly. He should probably get up. Or not. He doesn’t _need to,_ now, and he feels that above all Derek deserves to know this. Stiles can get his Derek Hours back! This day is getting better and better.

He calls Derek.

“ _What,”_ Derek practically growls on the other end of the line.

“Guess what!”

“ _What,”_ Derek practically growls on the other end of the line. Again.

“Exam season is over!” Stiles yells, and from somewhere in his apartment he hears Keith growling angrily, and a crash. “Oh, fuck.”

“ _What,”_ Derek practically growls on the other end of the line. Again again. Derek doesn’t know many words, this early in the morning.

“Dude, get some new vocal emoj– expressions. Get some new vocal expressions. And I’m pretty sure Keith is on a rampage. He-” Stiles winces at the sound of glass shattering. “Oh my God, I have a demon cat.”

Derek sighs heavily. _“Keith is not a demon cat. Ugh.”_

“What’s wrong?”

“ _I feel as though I have been dragged from the pits of Hell just to be told I’m going back to high school.”_

“Ah, the gym makes me feel the same way.”

“ _I don’t get it. What time is it. Is this a time? Does time exist?”_ Derek tends to get needlessly existential when he’s tired. He is decidedly Not A Morning Person.

Stiles smiles stupidly, pushing his way up from the bed with a grunt, stumbling into the kitchen. “I think,” Stiles says, “I’m going to get a maid. Just to make me coffee in the mornings, so coffee is always there. Or, like, get someone from one of those coffee bean farms. I bet they’re good at making coffee.”

“ _Doesn’t that graveyard worker live in your building? He gets in around now, anyway. Get him to make you coffee.”_

“That’s a good point,” and his grin grows as he realizes just how Derek knows that information. Many a night has been spent with them slumped on the couch, struggling through episode after episode of whatever sci-fi show they’re binging. Because they’re adults, or something. “I should get him a key cut. Like, ‘hey, man, I know we don’t know each other, but do you want to move in?’ Oh, jeez, I have nothing to offer him. How would I pay him.”

Stiles pours water into the kettle, because his coffee machine is not working. What a fickle bitch. Erica bought it for him, he thinks.

“ _You have Keith.”_

“I’m not giving up Keith!”

“ _N- Stiles. Don’t be stupid. He can pet Keith as payment.”_ Stiles can practically hear the eye roll. _“Obviously.”_

“Keith doesn’t let people pet him.”

“ _He lets me pet him. And literally anyone but you. Stiles, I think the problem here is you.”_

“That upsets me.”

“ _Hmm.”_ They lapse into silence for a few moments while Stiles waits for the water to boil. The kettle screams from the stove, and he quietly pours it over instant coffee. _“You should come to the gym with us.”_

Stiles bursts out laughing. “Thanks,” he wipes his eyes. “But there are so many things I’d rather do. For example, die.”

“ _Hmm,”_ Derek says again.

“You could come over afterwards, though?”

“ _I’d like that,”_ Derek says after a moment.


	27. Icing-ing in the rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why am i always posting these so last minute

Stiles can’t go back to sleep. Which is, you know, is _fine –_ he has things he can totally be doing – except that Derek’s going to come round in a few hours and Stiles will have burned out by then, probably.

He briefly considers whether or not it’s cool to have coffee and Adderall at the same time – it’s _probably_ fine. He hasn’t died yet, and it’s not like he’s seen anywhere _not_ to – before downing it with his coffee. It’s only when the bitter taste hits his tongue that he realizes he forgot to add anything to it. Because Stiles is dumb, but whatever. It’s too early for any brain process.

It’s iced coffee – Lydia had officially Banned them from drinking hot drinks ( _capital B_ , because she was extremely serious, “I will know if you’ve had a hot drink,” but jokes on you Lydia, because people are going to the vegan cafe for iced coffee so more coffee for them!) and even bought Stiles an ice cube tray.

It’s bright pink, and the ice comes out shaped like a little penis, which is frightening in two ways – it’s frightening how Lydia finds these things, and it’s frightening how _detailed_ those little dicks are.

Morally, he thinks this is wrong. Cold coffee. It’s – fundamentally, it goes against the laws of nature. Or something.

(But it’s tasty.)

He’s eyeing the mess Keith made while drinking his coffee. It’s not – it’s not _bad_ , per se, but it’s certainly annoying. Keith has knocked over the Polish manuscript he was translating, and all his notes with it. It’s going to be a bitch to rearrange, but it’s something to do.

But because subtle destruction is not something Keith is about, he’s knocked over the glass bowl Stiles found in a weird antique store that had been almost oppressively overflowing with strange shit, and it’s gone everywhere. There’s a piece at Stiles’ big toe, all the way in the kitchen, and he  n udges at it  with his toe . He’s literally not going to be able to walk anywhere in his apartment ever again.

Stiles sighs, and drinks his coffee. Stares at the mess. He hates his cat a lot.

He stands there, sighing and drinking and staring  and hating , until the coffee is gone.

“I’m going to have to deal with this,” Stiles says to himself, and frowns.

A  few hours later and he’s picking as much glass out of the carpet as he is out of his own skin, still, and his knees are sore from kneeling and from the shard of glass he had to use tweezers to get out, and thank God for Erica always leaving her shit here because otherwise that glass would still be in his knee.

Keith is watching impassively from the top of the table, sitting on the manuscript and papers (which he had decided to sort out instead of cleaning the glass, because _glass)_ like it’s a fucking throne, tail swishing.

“You know,” Stiles starts, brushing his hands on his jeans (and wincing as he accidentally forces a tiny bit of glass into the palm of his hand, what the fuck), “this is bad for both of us. Because I can’t feed you when I’m picking up glass. That’s a shame, Keith, it truly is. Because I’d really love to feed you.”

Keith sticks his nose up haughtily, and jumps from the table to the couch. Stiles would be impressed, but his apartment is really small.

He scratches at the door, meowing pitifully, and Stiles purses his lips, trying to pick the (thin, but long, and that's going to sting like a bitch) bit of glass out of his palm.

“You’re going to have to wait,” he says, and the glass comes out. “Oh. Well. I guess not, then.”

Stiles wishes desperately that he was wearing shoes as he tiptoes to the front door, opening it just enough so Keith can slip out  the crack, and is about to shut it again when a hand slams against the door.

Stiles cries out and flails backwards, landing on his ass, and – yep, that’s some glass digging into his back right now.

“Oh, God,” he groans. “If you’re here to kill me, just do it. Please.”

“Stiles?” Derek asks, and Stiles yelps again. He totally forgot Derek was coming round after the –

After the gym. With Boyd. He walks in, wearing  a tank top and fucking running tights, what the fuck, and he’s sweaty –  _God,_ he’s sweaty.

“Please,” Stiles whines. “Just end the pain already.”

Derek frowns. “Er,” he says. “Why are you on the floor?”

“I woke Keith up,” Stiles says, and Derek nods like that explains everything. It does, really, because Keith is an asshole.

“Do you…” Derek trails off. “Are you bleeding?”

“Yes,” Stiles says. “Because Keith is an asshole. And keep your shoes on, there’s glass everywhere.” He starts to laugh. “Though some of it is in my body, so I guess I’m protecting you from the glass. I’m such a good guy.”

Derek winces. It’s not a secret how Stiles is about blood. “Here,” Derek holds his hand out, and Stiles grabs it gratefully. Derek leads him, with a hand between his shoulder blades.

Stiles groans, and Jesus, he’s bad with blood, because the pain seems to fade and he feels a little dizzy and light headed.

“I am not sure,” Stiles frowns, “if this feeling is pleasant or not.”

Derek raises an eyebrow, and sits him on the couch.

“I feel completely numb. Like, how much blood could there even have been? It’s no more than a paper cut, really.” He laughs again. “’Tis but a scratch!”

Derek shakes his head, and furrows his brows. Lifts Stiles’ palms.

“Oh,” Stiles says. “That is more blood than I had originally antici- oh, ow. There’s still glass in my back. Can you-” he waves frantically at Derek, and accidentally smears some of his blood on Derek’s shoulder – and wow, he is so sweaty and muscly, but when Stiles squeezes pain flares in his hand and now he has blood all over Derek, oh no.

“Sto- Stiles, stop.” Derek grabs his wrists. “Can you lie on your front?”

“Is there still glass in my knees?”

“…No. How are you so terrible at cleaning up glass. Do you not have a dustpan and brush?”

“Then yes. Also, I-” Stiles freezes. “Oh my God, I’ve just been picking up glass by hand when I could have just swept it up, holy fuck.” He sighs, and lies on his stomach, crossing his arms and shoving his face in them petulantly.

“You’re an idiot,” Derek says. “Do you have tweezers?”

“Over-” Stiles waves his hand towards a spot the floor. “Over there.”

“Anything to clean the cuts up with?”

Stiles groans. “I have some witch hazel in the bathroom.”

“Okay,” Derek says, and runs a hand down Stiles’ back, stopping just short of the glass. “It’s not that big, but-”

‘Not that big’ still turns out to be larger than any piece of glass has any right to be, _especially_ when it’s digging into his skin.

“This sucks. I hate this. I’m sorry, there was so much glass, I was going to be finished before you got here.”

“Stiles. Shut up.”

Stiles shuts up.

“I’ll be back in a second,” Derek says, then pauses. “ _Back_ in a second.”

“I hate you.”

Derek presses a kiss to the top of Stiles’ head.


	28. Sweet tooth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so first of all im rly sorry the updates lately have been so shit, and second of all i won't be updating for a week or two - im going to be SUPER busy and any free time i have i want to put towards another fic i want to get out next (you can follow my tumblr for updates on my writing and nag me if you're getting super impatient, or have any questions about any of my fics or anything at all!!!!)
> 
> and third of all i do love you all so much for reading and commenting and stuff. i've been feeling quite bad lately so it's nice to read the lovely comments you leave <3
> 
> also, no, i literally do not know what is in norway except coldness and a better government. we have an exchange student from norway and she's lovely, so i guess they're really lovely over there. idk. i only know the one.

“I don’t get it.”

Stiles groans, and rolls his face towards Derek. He’s sat on the floor, frowning at the Polish manuscript.

“Uh,” Stiles says. “That’s because it’s in Polish.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “No, you idiot. I don’t get how one person can get that much glass in them from one bowl.”

“It is _very early._ ”

“That shouldn’t be as much of an explanation as it is.”

Stiles reaches over and shoves Derek in the shoulder. He doesn’t budge. “You’re less of a morning person than I am.”

“That’s debatable,” Derek says, raising his eyebrows.

“Do you not remember our conversation earlier?”

Derek frowns. Stiles rolls his eyes, and moves on. “How was the gym?”

“It was cold,” Derek scowls. “They always blast the A/C.”

“You’re such a baby.”

“I didn’t see _you_ at the gym.”

“That’s because I have self respect. Hey, do you want to shower? Not that I don’t appreciate all this,” he waves to Derek’s torso, “but that can’t be comfortable. Also, you’re dripping sweat everywhere. Hey, where’s Keith?”

“You let him out earlier.”

“I-” Stiles rolls his eyes. “I am aware. But he’s definitely eaten by now. Fuck, has college-girl-across-the-hall stolen my cat? That’s my child. You can’t steal children like that.”

“I’d dread to see the mother.”

Stiles laughs. “You know where the shower is, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude.”

“Don’t sweat all over my apartment!”

Derek sighs, and pushes himself up, tossing the manuscript onto the table. It does not, thankfully, fall over, though it balances uneasily on the edge of the table. Stiles stares at it for a long moment, and blinks when he hears the water running. With a groan, he pushes himself up, and goes to the kitchen. He should probably make breakfast. It’s a little past eight – and he hates that he’s awake, still, but every time he thinks about going back to sleep it’s like a new burst of energy – and Derek probably hasn’t eaten, probably hasn’t said anything about it because he doesn’t want to be a hindrance. What a fucking martyr. It’s not like Stiles is a baker, or anything, and cooking is his lifestyle.

Or anything.

Imagine. Wild.

Stiles burns the eggs.

“I am going to quit my job,” he says.

He makes pancakes – because how can you fuck up pancakes? – and bacon, because he’s not feeling particularly healthy today, and there’s a fruit bowl with at least three fruit so how unhealthy is he being, really.

“You live possibly the unhealthiest lifestyle I’ve ever seen.”

“Gah!” Stiles spins, knocking his back against the counter – and, ouch, fuck – as Derek appears behind him, still dripping wet with only a towel wrapped around his waist. “Uh. Aren’t you… you know, supposed to be changing? You know where my bedroom is. You literally have to walk into my bedroom to get to the bathroom. I have clothes. Not that – not that this isn’t, you know… specimen, oh wow your pecs are _firm,_ but. Um.”

Derek smirks. “I smelled bacon,” he says, and sniffs. “Did you burn the eggs?”

“That depends on your definition of ‘burning.’”

Derek raises his eyebrows.

“Yes, I burned the eggs.”

“You’re supposed to be a baker. Eggs are your thing.”

“And I’m going to quit my job, so it’s all fine.” Stiles frowns. “Oh, wait, Lydia already fired me.”

“Again?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “You’d think she’d have given up on firing me by now.” Derek rolls his eyes, turning towards the bedroom, and Stiles follows a water droplet as it spills down Derek’s back, down to –

“Oh, I think Boyd woke Erica this morning to meet _you_ at the gym, so I’d avoid her for a while. I’m pretty sure I won’t survive the week as it is.”

“Your bacon’s burning.”

“My bacon is not – fuck!”

He can hear Derek laughing from his bedroom.

They sit on the couch, feet carefully tucked beneath them, as they eat,  watching some animal documentary on the TV. Keith comes in at some point, and Stiles doesn’t even bother ask how he got in. Keith does as Keith will.

Stiles nudges Derek with his foot. “Hey,” he says. “Hey hey hey.”

Derek grabs Stiles’ ankle, pulling him down the couch and laying his feet on Derek’s ankle, ignoring Stiles’ indignant “oof!” and glaring at the TV.

“Derek,” Stiles tries again. “Deeerek.”

“Shut up, Stiles.” Derek says. “This gazelle is about to get fucking destroyed.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. “I see. You’re reminiscing about the good old days where you could rip people’s throats out without being a social outcast. And a prisoner.”

“Not if no one catches you.”

Stiles frowns. That is not the sort of thing he wants to imagine at nine in the morning. “Uh,” he starts, then shakes his head. “Why aren’t you with your sisters?”

Derek gives him a look. The Hales are not morning people.

“Point. When are they going back? Or are they sticking around this time?”

Derek shrugs, and looks a little too sad for Stiles’ liking.

“Oh, hey, big guy.” Stiles steals one of his legs back from Derek’s grasp and shoves his (socked, and band-aided) foot in Derek’s face.

“Stiles – Stiles, stop, no,” Derek pushes at Stiles’ foot, scowling, but his face is lighter and less angsty than before, so whatever. He needed that foot-face moment, if he knows it or not. Stiles is just being a good guy. Friend. Guy friend. Jesus, what are they.

“So?” Stiles asks, grinning.

Derek shoots him a murder-brow look. “I don’t know. You know how they are. They go where they want.”

“True,” Stiles shrugs, and turns to the TV. “But I also know they’ll always circle back to their family. Which is you, by the way.”

“I know who my family is.”

“Hmm.”

“And besides,” Derek shifts, raising his arms above his head and stretching – he’s wearing Stiles’ clothes, which are a little too small on him, so Stiles gets a _great_ view of Derek’s stomach – and groaning at the popping of his shoulders. “Everyone else is in Norway right now, so if they’re going to settle anywhere it’s there.”

The Hales had, temporarily, migrated to Norway. Because local wolf sanctuaries just don’t cut it these days, or something.

“You could go to Norway. I’m sure they love the whole dark and broody thing over there.”

“I’m not going to Norway, Stiles.”

“Oh, come on! Why not? It would be fun.” Stiles frowns. “By some definition of the word. What’s even in Norway, except coldness and a better government.”

“You really sell it.” Derek turns to look at him. “Are you filling any orders right now?”

Stiles wiggles his eyebrows. “Why, do you want me to fill something for you?”

“Shut up. I wanted to get a cake for Cora and Laura, but they’re ‘too good for store bought,” and Derek really does the quotation marks with his fingers, and Stiles really loves him, “and I’m not going to bake it.” He looks away from Stiles, shyly. “I was just wondering. Maybe. If you have the time-”

“Hey.” Stiles sits up, pulling his legs from Derek and crossing them under him. He cups Derek’s face – he always gets flighty when he asks for something. “It’s cool. When do you want it by?”

Derek isn’t meeting his eyes, so Stiles leans in and kisses him. When he pulls away, Derek is staring at his lips when he blinks with startling clarity, like he’s just remembered something.

“They wanted to go out today, go on a hike.”

“Oh!” Stiles scoots a little away from Derek. “Do you need to go?”

“Yeah, kinda. Do you. I mean. You can come with us, if you’d like.”

Stiles smiles a little awkwardly. “No. It’s fine – you haven’t seen them in ages. Go, shoo, I’ll bake the cake now. Go hang out with your family.”

“You don’t want to come?”

“I don’t want to intrude on family bonding time, dude.” Stiles rolls his eyes. Derek just raises his eyebrows, and leans in for a quick kiss before leaving.


	29. We make a good matcha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to post this on saturday, and then sunday, and then MONDAY, and started writing it on tuesday but i got caught up in stuff SO!!!! here you go. finally. im a mess, im so sorry. but ive been so busy!! i went to manchester and then a week later went to cambridge - which was really cool!! - and thinking a lot about university and stuff and i've been clearing through my room and throwing away things i've had for yearssss because spring cleaning or whatever. and i'm really excited because i'm going to plant sweet pea seeds and hope they aren't dead (it's a little late to plant them because i think they're supposed to be planted in march??? but fuck the rules, or whatever) and i'm going to move some of our succulents into a little pot and into my room because apparently (i think i read it somewhere) they're supposed to help with, like, sleeping or whatever which i haven't been doing. and also school is a real bitch but i'm so far past the point of caring. also i had a psychology test which i was revising for so this got pushed back and i was freaking out but i got 100% and anyway sorry for rambling my point is im really sorry this is really delayed. i was going to take a couple weeks break which i have and then a few days eugh. also i haven't had time to work on my other fic which is KILLING me but i'm writing another shorter one which i should finish today???? or tomorrow but i'll definitely post it before saturday. feel free to prod me to make sure i post it before then.

“We should go on a date,” Stiles blurts, and abruptly turns his back on Derek, rigorously cleaning the coffee machine. No one really comes in for coffee any more, but Stiles and Boyd spent the whole of yesterday making progressively weirder drinks when there weren’t any customers, so it… definitely needs cleaning.

It’s Thursday, and it’s quiet, and he doesn’t usually work Wednesdays but Erica’s ‘sick’ and he covered her shift, because he’s nice like that.

It’s Thursday, and it’s quiet, and Derek is leaning against the counter, doing evil things to a strawberry cupcake with his mouth. Evil things.

Derek’s quiet, and there’s a couple arguing outside the bakery. Stiles wonders what they’re arguing about, if it’s interesting. If he can listen to it if he focuses _real hard._

“We are on a date,” Derek says eventually, like this fucking counts. Like he can just show up to Stiles’ work – on one of the days neither of them should be here – and say, “hey! It’s a date.”

Stiles tells him as much.

Derek’s finished the cupcake, and is licking the icing off of his fingers. Outside, the couple lulls into silence.

“But neither of us should be here,” Derek says. “It’s not either of our regular days, so it’s a date.”

“No.”

“Definitely a date.” Derek grins, rests his arms against the counter, and Stiles focuses _real hard_ on a particular stain. Wonders about the couple outside.

“Not a date,” Stiles grumbles, and glares at the coffee machine. He can see his own reflection in it. He glares at the cloth in his hand, and starts wiping down the counter, pushing Derek’s arms away.

Derek just laughs, because he’s an asshole, and puts his hands up. “Okay,” he says. “Then what is a date?”

Stiles looks up at him, and back to the counter. “Going out, doing something. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what a date is?”

“Do you?” Stiles throws back, and Derek grins at him.

After a moment, Derek says, “okay,” and Stiles doesn’t pause in his scrubbing. He’s going to turn this counter into a fucking mirror. “So on this ‘date’,” and he actually does quotation marks, because he’s an asshole. Stiles flicks him with the cloth, and Derek laughs. Stiles could get addicted to that laugh. “On this date, we should probably do something traditional, right?”

Stiles frowns at Derek. “...Right,” he agrees.

“So if I were to say that, maybe, the drive-in theater is doing a marathon of old horror movies?”

Stiles purses his lips, looking up at Derek through his lashes, and leans back. “We don’t have a drive-in theater.”

“There’s one the next town over.”

“Devenford?”

Derek makes an agreeing noise.

“I played their team in lacrosse once.”

“You played?”

“Har har. I played. Against Devenford Prep.”

“Did you lose?”

“Spectacularly.” They look at each other for a moment, and Stiles is disgusted at the dopey smile he can feel on his own face. God, he’s never making fun of Scott again. “Horror movies?” Derek nods. “It’s not Halloween, though.”

“It’s always Halloween somewhere in the world.”

“…I have conflicted feelings about that statement.”

Derek laughs again, and Stiles tells him to stop.

“Hey,” Stiles says. “That vegan cafe–”

“–They’re not vegan–”

“–started doing iced green matcha tea.”

“What the hell is iced green matcha tea?”

“I don’t know. But you should get it. For both of us.”

“I’m not buying you tea.”

“Spoilsport!” Stiles flicks the cloth at Derek again, grinning at his disgruntled look. “Fine. Get one for yourself and two straws.”

“I’m not getting you a straw.”

“We have straws here! But I didn’t want to use them. You know, waste.”

“But you’re fine with wasting their straws?”

“Totally. They’re, like, recycled – which we should do, actually, I’ll bring it up to Lydia – and if that one straw means they’re one step closer to being bankrupt and closing, that’s fine. More business for me.”

“But, Stiles,” Derek says, deadpan, “you have so much business now. How would you deal with that added pressure?”

Stiles looks around the bakery. Besides Stiles and Derek, it’s completely empty. He hears the couple laughing outside – he’d completely forgotten about them.

“Shut up, asshole,” Stiles says.

“I’ll get you one if you give me the money for it.”

“You won’t get me one? You’re supposed to get me things. It’s, like,” Stiles waves his hands around. “Romance protocol, or something.”

“We’re not on a date.”

“So?”

“So I don’t have to get you anything.”

Stiles pauses. “Ugh, you dick. Fine–” he digs around in the tip jar, and pulls out a few dollar bills, and gives them to Derek.

“Are you supposed to go through the tip jar?”

“They’re my tips!”

Derek raises an eyebrow.

“They’re totally my tips, fuck you.”

“Just the tip?”

Stiles smacks Derek’s arm, and he laughs again. Yeah, Stiles is totally addicted.

Derek makes to leave, but Stiles grabs the collar of his tee – a white v-neck, it’s not fair. Chest hair! It’s too much – and pulls him in, pressing a quick, chaste kiss to his lips. When Stiles pulls away, Derek is smiling softly, and Stiles huffs, pulls him in again, kissing him again and again, nothing more than gentle presses of his lips, and Derek cups Stiles’ face in his hands, kissing Stiles a little deeper, and pulling away with a resounding smack.

“Do you want me to get the tea or not?”

Stiles pouts. “Leave me alone. Kissing you is a lot of fun. If you could kiss yourself, you would, dude.”

“That–” Derek raises his eyebrows. “Stiles. Please think about the things you say.”

“Shut up.”

Derek turns, and Stiles grabs his hand. “Stiles.”

“Take care out there, Derek.”

“Stiles.”

“It’s a hard life out there.”

“Stiles. I’m going to the cafe. I’m not going to get mugged between here and there.”

“You might!”

“No. Stiles.”

Stiles grins. “Okay, but…” he bites his lip. “It’s dangerous to go alone – take this.”

“Take what?”

Stiles kisses him again.

“You’re ridiculous,” Derek says, but he’s smiling anyway.


	30. Brood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brood is dutch for bread and english for derek, always.  
> also i noticed a timeline fuck up so i fixed it here sort of. whatever.  
> also the rating of this won't be going up!! <3

“Oh, jesus, what is this.”

“It’s–” Derek looks flustered for a moment. “It’s the… tea you wanted.”

“Tea isn’t green. Not this green. Holy shit.”

Derek frowns. “Did you not know what iced green matcha tea was before you asked me to get it?”

“Not even slightly, dude. Why would I?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Derek says, rolling his eyes. Stiles shrugs, shoving the straw in his mouth.

He makes a face. “It tastes like grass,” Stiles says.

“I think it tastes alright.”

“You haven’t even had any!”

Derek takes a sip. “I think it tastes alright,” he says again.

They’re sitting across from each other in a mint green booth, tucked neatly in the corner of the bakery, with the plastic cups from the vegan (“they’re not vegan.”) cafe and blueberry muffins sat in front of them.

“I am so unsurprised by that, I feel like I’m watching Pretty Little Liars, I’m so unsurprised.”

“What?”

Stiles ignores him. “I never knew a drink could be this green.”

“You drink bright pink drinks, on the regular.”

“Hey! Only when I’m at the bar. Which is not often, so lower that brow, and they’re _tasty_. Sorry I’m not a ‘man’ like you and only drink the blandest of drinks.”

“Stiles,” Derek says. “That wasn’t an attack on your choice of drinks. You don’t have to go into another commentary. Passing comment. Repeat after me. Passing–”

“Be quiet and eat your muffin,” Stiles says, and takes a long sip of his matcha. “Oh, man, that’s definitely an acquired taste.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“Don’t be mean!” Stiles looks around the bakery, and winces. “Dude. Business is so slow today.”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “Are you upset?”

“Nah,” Stiles grins, nudging Derek’s leg with his foot. “It means I basically get the day off to hang out with my – uh.” Stiles starts to choke on his own spit. “Gyack.”

Derek reaches over and pats Stiles on the back once, twice, and pulls back, pushing Stiles’ matcha into his hands.

“I love the – fuck – I love your support. Thanks Derek, baby, light of my life–”

“You should stop, before I choke you.”

“I may not be as averse to that as you’d like to believe.”

This time, it’s Derek who chokes. On his matcha, because he’s not the disaster that Stiles is, but it comes out of his nose a little so maybe they’re both just fucking wrecks.

Stiles laughs, and gives Derek a hard look. Derek looks vaguely uncomfortable, once he composes himself, and squirms in his seat.

“What?” Derek asks. He can’t seem to make eye contact with Stiles.

“What do I call you?”

“Uh…” Now, Derek does look at Stiles, frowning. “…Derek? How hard did you _choke?”_

“No! I mean,” Stiles waves his hands between them. “In relation to us! Do I call you my… what, boyfriend? Friend with mild benefits? My sugar plum? Sweet–”

“Boy – um, boyfriend is fine,” Derek flusters, and shoves half of his muffin in his mouth.

Stiles grins. “Boyfriend,” he says. “Derek is my boyfriend.” The words sit well in his mouth. He likes it.

He tells Derek as much, who smiles and says, “I’m glad,” a little too softly.

Stiles leans over and smacks Derek on the arm, ignoring his indignant, “hey!” and says, “well, Derek-my-boyfriend! What time are you going to pick me up for the drive-in theatre?”

Derek shrugs, swirling his straw. “It starts at nine. I’ll pick you up at six, and we can go for dinner first? Bee’s?”

“That–” actually sounds great, Stiles thinks, and for their first official ‘date’ Stiles can’t think of anything better. Except maybe an illicit weekend in a hotel in a town that’s bigger than Beacon Hills, but he’ll take what he can get. “Yeah, I mean – yeah. Sounds good. Oh, man, I haven’t been to a drive-in in _forever._ We’re totally going to make out.”

“We’re not going to make out.”

“We totally are! It’s a drive-in. Really romantic. Hey, I can even give you a hand job to the sound of people screaming and dying.”

Derek’s eyebrows say that he’s unimpressed, but he goes pink and blotchy. “So I’ll pick you up at six?”

Stiles hums, sipping his matcha. “Pick me up from my apartment? I’ll close up early and clean up a little. Don’t want to show up to our first date covered in flour.”

“Careful, Stiles,” Derek says. “Don’t want to raise my expectations too high.”

Stiles kicks out under the table, but Derek catches Stiles’ feet between his calves. “Careful, Derek.” Stiles’ voice is gruff. “Don’t want to lose out on your first date hand job.”

“You put out on the first date?”

“If it’s at a drive-in, totally. Well, uh – not that I have, you know, excessive experience at giving people hand jobs at drive-ins–”

“It wouldn’t matter if you did,” Derek says.

“That’s–” Stiles starts, then swallows. “You too. Uh–”

“Stiles,” Derek says, holding his hand up. “We don’t have to have the sex talk–”

“My dad said the exact same thing to me,” Stiles blurts. “Oh, what a terrible thing to say. I’m so sorry.”

Derek just raises an eyebrow. “We don’t have to rush into anything. I–” Derek loses his cool composure, and glances off to the side. Stiles drinks some more matcha. “I like you. A lot. I don’t want to ruin it.”

“Great! I, that is, me neither. Ruin things. I wouldn’t mind, you know,” he wiggles his eyebrows, and Derek looks clinically unimpressed. “But I – I would really love to go to the drive-in with you, Derek, as boyfriends, and watch movies and hold hands and shit.”

“Great.”

“Great.” They fade off into an easy quiet.

After a long moment, Derek says, “I should probably head out. Go back to the studio.”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Stiles says. “Gotta work on that wood. Work. Woodwork.”

Derek nods. “I have a few commissions I’m behind on. I don’t usually stay this long.”

“I get you, man. I wasn’t even supposed to be here today – I already told you – Boyd was going to cover for me. But there was a–” he gestures, vaguely. “A thing. And here I am. When I shouldn’t be. On one of my regular days.”

Derek nods again, solemn. “I’m working on a china cupboard. They’re paying a lot for it.”

“Sounds like good work that you should get to, for sure.”

Neither of them move.

“Hey,” Stiles says. “Wanna make out in the back room for ten minutes?”

Derek’s nod is more enthusiastic this time.


	31. I love you berry much

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember that fic i said i'd post before saturday?  
> hahahaha  
> no.  
> but i'm getting my hair cut!!! i'll post before and after pictures on my tumblr (vanillawg) so you should totally look out for that. also i wish i could draw because i'd actually love to draw out little things for this fic ;_; if any of you draw.... hmu ;)

Stiles is practically vibrating.

He keeps moving his hands; running them through his hair, shoving them in his pockets, tying and untying his apron, and he keeps moving his feet; walking to the back room and back again, sweeping the floor.

Stiles rocks back on his heels, scowling at the clock, and makes himself a vanilla latte – which he spills on himself when a customer walks in, the bell scaring him. He grits his teeth and smiles, probably a little manically, as he hands her a brown paper bag filled with pains au chocolat.

He turns the radio on, flicking through stations and static, and the ticking of the clock is loud through them all.

He goes in the back and flicks through photos, the plastic coverings crinkling under his fingers as he finds one of him, resting on the counter with his forearms crossed and a stupid smile on his face, eyes closed as he kisses Derek. One of Derek’s hands is cupping Stiles’ face, thumb resting just underneath Stiles’ eye, and the other is clutching a take-out cup between them.

Stiles smiles, and is careful when he takes the picture out and goes back up front, putting it on the counter and turning back towards the pinboard, grabbing a sharpie. He goes back to the picture, and thinks what to put on the white frame of the picture. That writing is _forever,_ and this is their first picture together. He remembers the date of the picture; it was only last week, and a pretty crappy day. Keith had ripped up some of his translations, and he’d spilled coffee all over himself – _twice –_ and he’d been in a bad mood all day before Derek had walked in and said, “it’s a special Tuesday,” and when Stiles had asked why Derek had just said, “because I can do this,” and kissed him, and Stiles had blushed a whole bunch and couldn’t stop smiling.

Stiles taps the sharpie against his chin, and settles with:

**EVERY DAY ♥**

next to the date. Stiles thinks it’s pretty cool, because it requires about three levels of meta understanding to get it, and it’s something special between them two.

Yeah, Stiles thinks. It’s nice.

“Maybe ‘every day’ can be our ‘always’,” Stiles says to himself, and rolls his eyes.

Underneath the pinboard there’s a sideboard, a large and old thing, white paint chipping, and Stiles _knows_ that there’s a box of pins somewhere…

Stiles yelps as he pricks his finger. Yeah, there’s the box. The very _open_ box, fuck everyone. Stiles shoves his finger in his mouth, frowning, as he gingerly picks up one of the pins. The box is small, made of clear plastic, and has a hinge lid, and he makes a point of closing it as he replaces the finger in his mouth with the body of the pin, making a mental note to send a _very angry text_ to Lydia and BLUE LIZARDS ARE NOT SEXY.

He turns around and picks up the picture, careful not to damage the edges, and finds a sort-of empty space. He holds the picture up with two fingers against the thin white frame, and pins it to the board.

The tack is actually really cute. They’re shaped like various sea animals, and the one that’s holding Stiles and Derek up is a whale. It’s cartoonish, with large eyes, and Stiles is of half a mind to steal all the whales from the pin box.

He grins, grabbing his phone and snapping a picture, sending it to Derek with a message attached:

**< <I like you a whale lot!**

**> >Date cancelled. Delete my number.**

**< <♥♥♥**

Derek doesn’t reply for a while, and Stiles pretends to be a contributing member of society who cares about his job by rearranging the cake stand while he waits.

A customer – a tanned lady with unruly brown hair and three kids clinging to her like a climbing frame – comes in and orders iced coffee (“as strong as you’re legally allowed to make it.”) and a half dozen donuts. While Stiles is boxing the donuts, his phone vibrates, and he tries desperately not to rush the lady out the door.

He manages to restrain himself until she leaves, gripping the edge of the counter until his knuckles are white and a little sore, and as soon as the bell rings as the door swings shut he’s whipping out his phone.

**> >Can’t wait for tonight. :)**

Stiles doesn’t scream. But it’s a near thing.

The clock reads five, and Stiles starts getting ready for closing: he cleans down the tables and the booths and the chairs, dusts the bookcase, cleans behind the counters and empties the bins, hauling the trash out back and throwing it into the dumpsters, nose scrunched up against the smell. He throws his apron in his locker, locks the register, and by the time half five rolls around he’s standing outside, pulling down the metal security shutters over the door, heart skipping every other beat.

Stiles doesn’t know why he’s nervous. He _doesn’t._ He’s hung out with Derek a lot for the past few years. And he’s gone on dates before, but…

But none with Derek. No actual, certified, This Is A Date dates. And it’s a big thing! It’s a milestone. And it’s with _Derek_ , who is pretty much the best thing to happen to Stiles.

It took a long time to break down Derek’s walls. He’d been awkward at first, which – yeah, he’s still awkward, but he’s open in a way he wasn’t when the bakery first opened. There was a time when Derek was dangerously close to overtaking Scott with the whole best friend thing (which, okay. That time was pretty much a few hours ago, because now they’re _boyfriends)._ There’s not much Stiles doesn’t know about Derek, and there’s not much Derek doesn’t know about Stiles.

Stiles knows what Derek looks like, early in the mornings and sprawled across Stiles’ couch, and he knows how he takes his coffee and how he’ll practically purr when Stiles scratches his head, and he knows too much to not freak out about fucking this up.

By the time Stiles is pulling the keys from his back pocket, his hands are shaking so badly he misses the lock the first three tries. He stops, and takes a deep breath. He shouldn’t have to freak out. It’s Derek, and things have always been easy with Derek.


	32. Family bunding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got my hair cut also what happened to this chapter. what happened to you, buddy?

When Stiles opens the door to his apartment, Keith comes bounding at him, claws digging into Stiles’ thighs and chest as Keith climbs him, curling around his neck.

Stiles laughs nervously. “Did you miss me, buddy?” he asks, risking life and limb to reach up and scratch Keith between the ears. Keith, surprisingly, does not react violently; he just purrs, and Stiles accepts that he’ll never predict his cat and turns, closing the door with a click and locking it.

Keith stays perched on Stiles’ shoulders, wrapped around his neck, purring like an engine and flicking his tail in Stiles’ face. Stiles sighs, half-heatedly swatting Keith’s tail, and toes off his shoes, bracing himself with one hand on the door and kicking his shoes under the coat rack. Stiles only has two pairs of shoes – sad sneakers, scuffed and faded to a dark green instead of the black they were supposed to be, laces mismatched, one a pale pink and the other a dirty white, and black dress shoes Lydia made him get. They’re in much better quality, if only because Stiles never fucking wears them.

Stiles wishes, now more than ever, that he had nice sneakers, because Derek is picking him up in twenty minutes and he’s going to look like a hobo. No more than usual, but this is their _first date_ and he wants to make the effort.

He bites his lip, pulling his phone from his back pocket and checking the time. It’s probably too much to hope, but…

**< <If I had a hot date with Derek, how quickly could you come over and give me your boots? The ones Allison got you?**

The reply, thank God, is instant.

**> >Hot date???? I’ve got you bro be there in 5**

**> >Ok maybe not 5 but I will BE THERE how long have I got????**

**< <Twenty minutes**

**> >Be dressed when I get there**

Stiles grins. He’d been delighted when he learned that Scott and he had the same size feet – though it did lead to some awkward crotch glances, but he’s not going to think too hard about that – because Allison always makes sure Scott has nice clothes (nicer than Stiles, anyway, but whatever) and shoes. Including a pair of black boots she’d bought him last Christmas. They’re pretty cool – okay, they’re a lot cool, and kind of _badass –_ and probably way better for a first date than Stiles’ old sneakers he’s had for years.

Derek knows that Stiles only has two pairs of shoes, and he’s definitely going to notice the boots, but he’ll know that Stiles is making an effort, at least. It’s the thought that counts, or whatever.

(And the boots are fucking badass. Stiles should invest in a pair.)

He pads to the kitchen, Keith still content on his shoulders, a constant and oddly comforting rumble emanating from his small body. He’s a heavy weight, and warm, and Stiles only notices now how his heart rate has calmed down, hands steady as he grabs a glass and turns on the faucet, tapping the counter as it sputters once, twice, before a steady stream of water comes out. Stiles fills his glass, and grimaces at the weird metallic taste of the water – but it’s cool, and he can feel it running down his throat and settling in his stomach.

Stiles downs the glass quickly, Keith swishing his tail unhappily as Stiles tips his head back, but Keith just rearranges himself and settles back down.

It’s going to be a bitch to get changed with Keith wrapped around him like a scarf, but Stiles reasons that he has some time to get ready, anyway. He checks the time. 5:41.

Yeah, he thinks. He has time.

Five minutes later, he realizes that he does not have fucking time, not for this.

Keith is still perched on his shoulders – digging his claws into Stiles’ neck every time he tries to move him off – completely uncaring for Stiles’ panic. He’s just going to have to accept his fate. Keith is going to third wheel his date, and he’s going to show up covered in flour.

There’s a loud knock on the door, loud and startling, and Keith meows unhappily in Stiles’ ear.

“Please be Scott,” Stiles whispers like a mantra. “Please be Scott please be Scott please be – Scott! Thank God, buddy, you gotta help me out.”

Scott’s standing outside the door, blinking owlishly at Stiles, and Stiles doesn’t know what he looks like, but it must be pretty bad.

“Uh,” Scott says, and Stiles grabs his arm, pulling him inside and slamming the door closed shut behind him, already speaking.

“Seriously, you need to get this fucking cat off me – are those the boots? Thank you so much, just toss them over there, I’ll put them on later – like, right the fuck now. Just stand and look appealing, he’ll come to you.”

They both stand stock still in the middle of Stiles’ apartment.

Keith does not move.

“Oh my God, I’m not taking my cat with me on a date. Dislodge him, please. Just fucking grab him and pull him off.”

Scott looks horrified. “No way.”

“Just – coax him off, or something. There’s cat food in the – you know where the cat food is. I am not cancelling my _first date_ because my cat suddenly decides to love me!”

Scott’s shaking with laughter, covering his mouth as best he can, but Stiles can hear the occasional snort and he does not appreciate it.

“Why can’t you just, like… lift him off?” Scott asks, a little breathless, and Stiles scowls. “Gently. Don’t fling him anywhere. You’re looking a little… murderous, there, dude.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, and goes back into his bedroom, leaving the door open. The apartment is small enough that he won’t have to raise his voice for Scott to hear him.

“I think I’ll wear my red plaid shirt – you know, the one I wore to Lydia’s birthday party?” Stiles says, already pulling it from his wardrobe.

Scott pokes his head around the door, and Stiles can hear the cat food rattling in Keith’s bowl. Keith’s head perks up, but he looks disdainfully at Scott. “Er,” Scott says. “Sure. It’s fine.”

“Great,” Stiles says, because Scott only dresses nice because of Allison. Maybe he should have asked her to come over instead. Or Lydia, he thinks, shivering. “Over… this?” He grabs a graphic tee, faded and soft, with the words ‘HE’S NO GOOD TO ME DEAD’ barely visible. “Yeah, I’ll wear this one. It’s nice.”

“It’s… fine,” Scott says.

“Ugh, just come over here and get the damn cat off me, please?”

Scott walks towards Stiles tentatively, waving the bowl out in front of him like an offering. “Here, kitty kitty kitty,” Scott says. “Here, kitty kitty kitty.”

Stiles makes a disgusted noise, and Keith looks like he shares the same sentiment. “Dude.”

“I’m trying!”

“Try harder!”

Keith leaps off of Stiles’ shoulders and onto the bed, curling up in the middle and going to sleep.

Scott and Stiles are silent and still for a long moment, and Stiles blinks. “What an asshole,” he says. “Where are my nice jeans?”


	33. Better latte than never

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapter title is obviously referring to the fact that i forgot to update yesterday and was gonna post a longer chapter to make up for it, but i should be posting my other fic soon so i'm gonna act like that makes up for it.

By the time the clock turns six, Stiles is standing outside his apartment building, picking nervously at the cuffs of his sleeves, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and pulling them back out a moment later to mess with his cuffs again. He rocks back on his heels, and chews on his lip, and tries desperately to not check his phone.

Derek rolls up in front of Stiles’ apartment building, in the Camaro – oh, Lord – and rolls the window down. Stiles blanches, because Derek is wearing sunglasses and a smirk, and Stiles’ heart definitely stops for a moment. Or two.

Stiles tries to play cool when Derek opens the passenger door, looking down the road and pretending he’s looking at something profoundly interesting to try and hide the flush on his face. He tries to slide into the Camaro – all cool like, and elegant – and whacks his head on the roof of the car. Derek laughs, as Stiles swears profusely.

Derek pulls the car from the curb, and Stiles keeps his mouth shut for as long as it takes to look Derek over.

He’s wearing a deep red sweater – with thumb holes, oh _Lord_ – and black jeans that are too fitted to be socially acceptable, and maybe Stiles’ mouth waters a little but he’ll deny it to his dying breath.

Derek smiles at him, and even if Stiles can’t see his eyes, it’s blinding anyway, and Stiles’ heart stutters.

“Hey,” Stiles breathes.

Derek’s smile grows. “Hi,” he says, and they lapse into a comfortable silence.

The world around them is a quiet sort of peaceful, slow and inexplicably relaxed; the sun dyes the sky a burnt orange, and a cool breeze makes the heat tolerable. There’s a jogger, blonde hair tied in a ponytail and a dog pulling her along, and the sunlight seems to drip across her skin like syrup. The only noise is the low rumble of the engine and the song of the infrequent bird. Everything else turns to static, until the world becomes him, and Derek, and the subtle vibrations of the Camaro.

Stiles looks over at Derek, and all of his nerves and anxieties fade into something arbitrary and far away, and when Derek’s hand reaches over and rests on Stiles’ thigh, Stiles turns it over and entwines their fingers, serene and, somewhere deep between his ribs, warm. He smiles, and nothing has ever felt so natural.

“You know,” Stiles says, “there’s a sun visor right there. You don’t need those shades. Are you trying to impress me?” He grins. “I already think you’re cool.”

Stiles can’t see Derek’s eyes, but his eyebrows are severely unimpressed. Stiles reaches over, flipping down the sun visor and going for Derek’s shades, but Derek twists his head away.

“I will crash this car,” he says, but he doesn’t remove his hand from Stiles’ thigh to swat him or anything.

“You won’t,” Stiles says with confidence. “I trust you.” This time, when he reaches for Derek’s glasses, he’s not met with any resistance, and plucks them from his face. He opens the glove compartment and puts the shades in, careful that they’re not pressed against anything that could damage them, and smiles up at Derek.

Derek, who squints dramatically, and says, “I’m blind. I will absolutely crash this car.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, and pokes Derek’s cheek – pokes his _dimple,_ because he’s totally dimpling right now, _oh Lord –_ and laughs when Derek scowls. Derek does lift his hand from Stiles’ thigh, plucking Stiles’ hand away from his face and tangling their fingers. Their hands come to a rest sort of awkwardly between them, and Stiles knows his hand will begin to cramp at this angle, but something tells him that it’s definitely worth it.

The parking lot outside of Bee’s is empty, save for a blue pickup truck, and Derek lets go of Stiles’ hand to unbuckle his seatbelt and open the door, somewhat reluctantly.

Just like trying to get in the car, Stiles tries to get out with some sort of grace, but somewhere between the door and the seatbelt Stiles gets tangled, and it is only by the grace of God – which, in this case, is Derek grabbing him by the back of his shirt and hauling him up, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like ‘idiot,’ a sentiment Stiles neither likes nor disagrees with, under his breath – that he doesn’t make very good friends with the ground.

“I’m cool, I swear,” Stiles blurts as Derek pulls him up, tugging lightly on Stiles’ sleeve until they’re facing each other, Derek’s hands running up and down Stiles’ arms.

Derek raises a brow, and cups Stiles’ face, bringing him in for a soft kiss. Between the heat, and the roughness of Derek’s stubble, Stiles feels so content he might start to purr. Derek deepens the kiss, licking at the seam of Stiles’ mouth, but his movements are languid and relaxed, and there’s no real heat to it. Stiles lifts his hands and cards them through Derek’s hair – which probably has a bit too much product, but it’s fine, and Stiles knows what Derek’s hair feels like when it’s soft and fluffy so he doesn’t feel like he’s missing out on anything – pulling Derek closer, anyway.

Derek’s hands slide from Stiles’ face to his waist, pushing them under Derek’s shirt, and even through Stiles’ tee Derek’s hands are hot against his sides.

Derek pulls away, not without hesitation, and Stiles chases his lips, pouting at his smirk.

“You look good,” Derek says, voice soft and quiet, and Stiles’ heart clenches as he grins.

“You too,” he says. “Do you–” he points unimpressively at Bee’s, and Derek laughs, low and gentle.

Bee’s isn’t busy – there’s a guy sat at the bar, a mug of steaming coffee in front of him, and a trucker’s hat pulled low on his head (which is sort of odd, because Bee’s is the furthest diner from any motorway and the dude doesn’t look like he belongs at _all,_ but whatever) – so they just sit themselves in a booth far from the door.

Bee comes over, hand on hip and lips pursed, and looks at Stiles hard enough that he squirms.

Derek coughs, but Bee doesn’t look at him. “Can we – uh. Have a moment, please?” They haven’t even picked up the menus yet, even though Stiles already knows what he wants to order. He doesn’t differ from his regular order.

Bee still doesn’t look at Derek, just giving Stiles a judgmental look and going, “mhmm,” before turning on her heel and going behind the bar, refilling the trucker’s coffee.

“What the fuck,” Derek breathes.

Stiles tries for a smile, but Bee is glaring at him from behind the bar. “You don’t come here often, do you?”

Derek shakes his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're not already you should follow my tumblr at vanillawg!!!  
> also all that happens in this chapter is they take a car ride to bee's but i guess this is my fault for deciding to make all the chapters so freaking short


	34. You drive me bananas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bleugh

The menu is a trashy thing, in ugly shades of orange and red, typed up in comic sans and printed about fifty years ago. Stiles doesn’t mind it too much, even though it’s faded and awkwardly scuffed and a little sticky, because he has his order memorized and never has to look at that piece of shit again.

Derek, however, does not have as much luck.

“Oh, what is this.” He drops the menu onto the table, lips curled and murder-brows in full effect, and holds his hands in front of him like they’re diseased.

Stiles just laughs, head tipped back, and Derek scowls even more.

“This isn’t funny, Stiles,” Derek says. “How am I supposed to order from this? I’m not even sure half of these stains are from anything you can order here.”

Stiles shrugs. “I’m pretty sure some of those are from before I was born. They’re, like,” Stiles waves his hand around airily, looking for the word. “Part of the atmosphere. The _aesthetic_ ,” he says, with jazz hands.

“ _Aesthetic_?” Derek hisses, leaning over the table. “This is not an aesthetic. This is nothing made by God. I don’t know how I’m going to order. I can’t even look at it.” He sits back, glaring morosely at the menu.

“Dude, we’ve gone to Bee’s before. Why are you tripping about it now?”

“This,” Derek grabs the menu and waves it between them, and Bee looks over at them, “is not something I’ve ever faced at Bee’s before.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, reaching over and taking the menu from Derek’s hands. “Huh,” he says, raising a brow. “It is more sticky than usual. Hey, maybe Bee purposefully gave us a sticky one. To make us squirm, or something.” He wiggles both his eyebrows. “Or a suggestion?”

“I don’t even want to entertain that. What’re you going to order?”

“Hmm,” Stiles taps a finger against his chin, staring at the menu like he’s actually considering getting anything else. “I think I’m gonna go a little wild. Double bacon and cheese burger, maybe.”

“Real adventurous,” Derek says, biting down on his lips a second too late – Stiles caught that smile, and matches it with one of his own. “I think I’m going to get a hot dog.”

“Oh God, please don’t,” Stiles blurts before he can clamp his mouth down. Bee looks over again, and he has never felt so judged in his life. He barely resists the urge to sink in his seat.

Derek, though, just shoots him a shit eating grin, resting his forearms against the table – nudging the menu out of the way, and he tried to be subtle about it, but _Stiles saw him_ – and laces his fingers together, tipping his head forward slightly so he’s almost looking up at Stiles, eyes lidded and dark.

Stiles swallows.

“Why wouldn’t I order the hot dog, Stiles?” Derek says, grin fading into a smirk, but with no less intensity. “I like a little meat,” and he shows a little teeth as he says it, and Stiles isn’t going to survive tonight at _all,_ holy fuck, “and it’s been a while since I’ve had sausage.”

Stiles licks his lips instinctively, throat dry, but Derek catches the movement and looks a little too smug for Stiles’ liking.

“Uh,” Stiles says, and his brain stutters to a stop.

Bee chooses that moment to come over, holding a notepad and pen, looking like standing at their table is simultaneously the first and last thing she wants to do. She’s glaring at Derek instead of Stiles, which he’s a little bit grateful for. Her stare is intense, and if anyone can match it, it’s Derek.

Except Derek is looking pointedly at the menu, fingers just grazing the edges of it.

There’s silence between the three of them, Elvis Presley singing Jailhouse Rock in the background, and the jukebox is old and a bit crappy so it sounds like the music is playing from outside the diner. The lighting casts Bee in shades of pink, and Derek in blue, and it’s a little surreal, and a lot uncomfortable.

“Uh,” Stiles says again. “We’re ready to–”

“This is a family restaurant,” Bee says, and her voice seems more nasally than usual. Stiles doesn’t think Bee has ever fallen ill, as long as he’s known her.

Derek is beginning to glare at his menu, looking uncomfortably like he’s planning on ripping it to shreds, and Stiles nudges his foot with his own under the table. It’s not much, but it makes Derek’s glower marginally less intimidating.

“It sure is!” Stiles says brightly, and Bee looks infinitely unimpressed. “Uh, are you ready to order, Derek? I think we’re about ready to order.”

Stiles rattles off their orders, only pausing to ask Derek what he’d like to drink (“root beer, please.”), and throwing Bee an ostentatious grin. He’s pretty sure it has the desired effect, because she just silently scribbles down their order and goes to the kitchen.

Derek and Stiles’ conversation turns into something more comfortable, easier, with her gone – it’s not that he doesn’t love Bee, because he does, in some weird way, like she’s the angry grandmother that only visits at Christmas and spends the entire time eating the candy and judging everyone and goes back to the 'motherland' or wherever, but her presence is a little… much, sometimes.

She comes back twenty minutes later, their dinner on a tray, and she quietly puts everything in front of them.

“Is there anything you boys need?” she asks, and her voice is definitely a little rough and nasally. She doesn’t wait for an answer, just glaring Stiles down when he opens his mouth, and spins on her heel, heading into a back room.

Stiles waits a few moments after she vanishes, not wanting to risk it, and says, “where do you think she goes? Do you think there’s a slaughterhouse out there?”

“Probably goes back to her coffin,” Derek grumbles, and Stiles grins at him, nudging him again under the table. “Nothing that evil is human.”

“Hey, Bee’s not evil. She’s just…” Stiles stares down into his milkshake – banana-caramel-peanut-butter-with-whipped-cream, fuck you very much Derek – and swirls the straw, thinking. “She’s just Bee, I guess.”

Derek looks at Stiles for a moment. “Do you know her well?” he asks, voice quiet. He almost gets drowned out by Billie Holiday.

“Nah,” Stiles says. “I don’t think anyone really knows Bee well. But I’ve known her all my life, and she’s always been like–” he waves his hand around vaguely, “–that. She cares in her own way, I guess. I used to come here a lot, and she’d give me free milkshakes. I put this drink on the menu, you know?”

Derek raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t.”

“Yeah. She made it special for me, I suppose, and I liked it a lot. So.” He shrugs.

“That’s…” When Stiles looks up, Derek’s eyes are soft and fond. “That’s pretty nice, huh?”

Stiles looks back at his milkshake, smiling. “Yeah,” he says.


	35. Orange you glad?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry but the past few days i've felt sooo bad ;_;

The rest of their dinner at Bee’s went, largely, incident free (or more specifically Bee free, because Stiles being anywhere at any point, ever, is not going to be incident free, and the salt shaker is definitive proof of that). In fact, it went a lot better than Stiles had hoped; even though Derek had calmed Stiles down outside of the diner, Bee made _Derek_ nervous, which in turn made Stiles nervous. But…

But it’s easy with Derek. Almost as soon as Bee had gone out back (“returned to her cave,” Derek had grumbled, glaring at the door she had vanished behind until Stiles reached over and tried to steal his root beer. Derek had snapped back to attention real quick, then) the tense atmosphere diffused, and it was just Stiles, and Derek, and tinny music from before Stiles’ dad was born.

Well, and the trucker, who passes out and snores really loudly about two minutes after Bee went in the back, but Stiles thinks it really adds to the romantic atmosphere.

Derek is of other opinions, but Stiles is also of the opinion that he doesn’t give a fuck, so. It balances out, or something like that.

Derek goes out of his way to find the least sexually charged way of eating a hot dog, which in itself is a bit of a shame, and also fucking hilarious, because he cuts it up and eats it with a knife and fork. He also glares when Stiles laughs, going a blotchy red, which just makes him laugh even more, and it’s just a massive cycle.

Stiles snorts his milkshake through his nose and spends the next five minutes clawing at it, because “I can still feel it up there, holy shit,” which makes Derek laugh, and cycles or whatever, so it balances out, or something like that.

Bee shows up like a fucking ghoul as soon as they wipe their mouths and drop their napkins on their plates; between one moment and the next, she’s standing over them with their check in her hand, looking dead-eyed and a little grey. She doesn’t bother glaring at them, and stands perfectly still, but Derek still flinches violently when she turns to him, asking if they’re done, how did you find everything? Fine, thank you.

Derek insists on paying, and Stiles agrees – “but only if you let me pay for the theater!” – and they tip generously, because it’s Bee’s.

“So,” Stiles says. They’re in the Camaro, driving steadily away from Beacon Hills. Devenford is only the next town over, but Beacon Hills is smack bang in the middle of butt fuck _nowhere_ , and it’s an hour and a half down quiet motorways and quiet side roads, and if there’s one combination that doesn’t work for Stiles, it’s Stiles-plus-sugar-plus-quiet. So, Stiles says, “so,” and his fingers are thrumming against his knee.

Derek raises his brows, throwing Stiles a quick glance. “So?” he repeats, smirking slightly.

“ _So_.”

Derek laughs then, a deep chesty laugh, and Stiles pauses before joining.

“It’s weird,” Stiles says. “It’s, like, I can’t keep my mouth shut, but as soon as I want to talk, it’s like…” he lifts his hands so that they’re eye level, fingers curled in on themselves slightly, and quickly straightens them out. “Poof! Nothing to say. Words – gone.”

Derek is quiet for a moment, then, “you can put some music on, if the silence is bothering you.”

“Nah,” Stiles says. “It doesn’t bother me.” But he puts music on anyway.

Derek’s car didn’t come with a cassette player, but Derek had installed one when he first got it anyway, because he’s old and allergic to anything modern, so Stiles has to flick through a beaten shoe box filled with cassettes – he’s not entirely surprised that they’re all clean and dust-free, but he recognizes some that he’s definitely surprised Derek hadn’t stored away somewhere and forgotten about. Written in thick, blocky sharpie, Stiles’ own writing looks up at him, and Stiles at it, and a grin slowly stretches across his face.

“I cannot believe,” Stiles says, “you kept these.” He picks one up and turns it over and over in his hands. It reads:

**OLD MAN MUSIC #3**

There are probably a couple dozen altogether, not all of them here – silly mix tapes Stiles had put together and given to Derek when he found out about the cassette player.

When Stiles looks over at Derek, his ears are pink, and he stares resolutely at the road.

“I liked them,” Derek says softly. “I. They were nice.” He looks at Stiles, then, and his eyes are too earnest. It’s overwhelming, and Stiles looks back to the cassette.

“For the record,” Stiles starts, opening the cassette player and slotting the cassette in, “I don’t think you’re an old man. Exactly.” He presses the cassette player, and the sound of guitars fills the Camaro. It doesn’t take Stiles long to recognize the song.

By the time the song is finished, the pressure of having to fill the silence with talk is gone, and like that Stiles starts talking. And talking, and talking, and Derek–

Derek talks, too. Not as much as Stiles – honestly, no more than he usually does, but he talks, and it’s easy, and Stiles can’t, for the life of him, remember why he had any hang ups over this. Any anxiety or second thoughts over… over them.

Sure, there’s always the risk of losing a friend once you start dating them, but it’s… it feels natural. They fit together well, and it feels like nothing between them has changed besides the constant pressure Stiles felt on his chest when he saw Derek, the tug that always said _I love you I love you I love you_ when he saw him. Now, it doesn’t hurt to bite his tongue a little longer.

It’s… _good_.

The sky is still orange, streaked through with reds and pinks and a hint of blue, and Iggy Pop fades into Fleetwood Mac into Johnny Cash, and Derek looks beautiful in this light.

Derek reaches over and tangles their fingers, and he looks beautiful in this light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> perpetually wondering how i manage to fit a fucking car ride into an entire chapter but whatever!!


	36. I Wanted A Bakery Pun But All I Got Was This Stupid Chapter by Fall Out Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally i've been working on this library fic and then i put it aside to start one of my other fics that i didn't want to write yet because it's massive and will take me forever and school and aah. i'm so sorry.  
> BUT this is a great opportunity to mention that i will never abandon this fic. i know that most people probably say that and then abandon it, bUT this fic is not finished. there's still a ways to go before i reach a natural conclusion, and abandoning it defeats the literal point of it - writing practice.  
> also it's short because fuck you that's why i do what i want.

“Oh man, this is so cool.”

Derek raises his eyebrows, but he looks amused. “It’s just popcorn, Stiles,” he says, “you can have it any day.”

Stiles raises a finger, shoving it in Derek’s face, who goes a little cross-eyed, and Stiles would totally laugh but he’s making a point. “Yes.” He waggles his finger, and Derek follows it dutifully. “But it’s popcorn at the drive-in theater. And it’s _first date popcorn_. It’s, like, infinitely more cool than normal popcorn. Also, look!” He half turns back to the counter, picking up their paper cups. “Cups! We can put all of the drinks in these, and _no one can stop us_. Uh,” he pauses, looking guiltily and the clerk who looks so young yet unfathomably old, all wild hair and acne and dead eyes, “not that we’d do that. We’re good citizens. We – okay, alright, coming.”

Derek grabs his arm and drags him away, and the clerk just rolls his eyes and mutters something about not being “paid enough for this shit,” and they go to the drinks machine, where Stiles definitely puts a little bit of all the drinks over his ice cubes. Derek just gets fanta, because he’s boring but apparently not boring enough for pepsi, or, _ugh_ , coke.

“You know,” Stiles says when they’re in the Camaro, carefully arranging their food between them. The popcorn ends up precariously balanced on the gear sticks, but the pack of sweets seems settled well enough, “I’m beginning to think you drove this car so we wouldn’t have any room to make out.”

Derek raises his eyebrows, shooting Stiles an unimpressed look. “You wanted me to bring the van to the drive-in?”

“Point.”

The drive-in is, surprisingly, pretty empty; there’s maybe a dozen or so other cars, all comfortably far away from the others, and all way more make out appropriate. Not that Stiles is complaining, because as soon as the screen flickers and starts playing the first black-and-white movie, he exclaims, “oh fuck, dude, I love this one.”

The movie starts with screaming and people being murdered and brutalized – the best way for a movie to start, Stiles believes – so he doesn’t notice when Derek’s hand creeps closer and closer, until–

Until he takes the popcorn out of Stiles’ hand and shoves it in his mouth.

Stiles gapes, and Derek looks at him with wide eyes, shrugging.

“You know what you just did, right?” Stiles hisses. “You just committed a crime of the highest degree. I – I cannot be in the same car as you, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude.” Derek reaches into the bag of popcorn this time, taking out a single piece and putting it on his tongue, eyes on the screen. “And be quiet. I’m watching this.”

Stiles huffs, but he settles back down, grabbing a handful of popcorn (gleefully noting how some falls into deep crevices of the Camaro, and how Derek’s eyebrow twitches) and makes a point of shoving it all in his mouth at once, glaring at the side of Derek’s head.

Derek hands him his drink when Stiles finishes chewing.

“Oh God, thank you. That was horrible.”

Derek presses a finger to Stiles’ lips.

When the movie ends, Stiles all but stumbles out of the Camaro, stretching his long limbs and wincing at the cracks as his bones pop. Derek doesn’t seem much better off, a pained expression on his face as he turns his neck.

“Maybe,” Derek says, “the Camaro wasn’t the best car to take.”

Stiles shakes his head, and ignores the twinge of his neck muscles. “Wouldn’t have wanted to come here any other way.” He walks around the front of the Camaro and takes Derek’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together and smiling at Derek. “C’mon,” he says. “My legs are numb, dude.”


	37. Bee good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay.  
> it's been a while. i am aware of that, but-  
> -life has been a bitch. i can't go into details about everything that's happened, because a lot of it isn't for me to tell, but i can say that there's been drama and arguing and the police (three times!) and hospitalisation and doctors and then the whole manchester thing, and i have not been in the right place to write anything.  
> on top of all of this, i've started my ucas profile and am about to start my personal statement for universities. i also have an interview this thursday!  
> but. yes. this chapter has been sitting around for a long time in my documents, and i just have not been able to finish it. it's bad, and a little short, and i really hope you guys can understand.

Stiles is jittery.

That is, Stiles is _always_ jittery, but his leg is jerking up and down so rapidly it’s at risk of blocking his view of the screen.

Derek throws him a sideways look, planting his hand on Stiles’ knee and holding it down. “What is wrong with you?” he asks.

Stiles gestures at the fanta. “Phenylalanine,” he says. He gestures to his chest. “Adderall.” He waves his hand wildly near his head, and Derek reaches over to grab his wrist, preemptively stopping any bodily harm. Which, fair. “Dopamine. It’s a wild ride, dude. Oh, sick, that guy got totally destroyed.”

Derek raises an eyebrow, and Stiles shakes his head wildly. “I’ll crash,” Stiles says. “Or go for coffee. It’s supposed to–” he wiggles his fingers vaguely in the direction of his head, “–help me focus. Or something. Oh, sick, is that his kidney?”

Everything is going too fast for Stiles, right now, and the world moves past him in juts and shudders. He wasn’t lying; the phenylalanine doesn’t mix well with him, but it’s like things slow down when Derek tightens his fingers around Stiles’ knee, sliding it up to rest on the middle of his thigh. It’s terrifying, perhaps, how calm Derek makes Stiles, so quickly.

It’s okay, though, because when Stiles curls his fingers around Derek’s, he watches as Derek’s eyes soften, and he thinks that he makes Derek calm, too.

Stiles smiles, and goes back to watching the screen.

“You know,” Stiles starts, “cinema has really lost something, nowadays.”

“Oh?” Derek says, and the lines of his raised brow says he’s just humoring Stiles, mostly. Whatever.

“Because – like–” Stiles flails his hands uselessly, trying to find the words. The concept. Derek’s thumb is rubbing idle circles against the fabric of Stiles’ jeans. “A modern audience, we look at horror now, and see – a laugh. Cheap scares. But back then, they didn’t have the same kind of,” Stiles searches for the word, and knows that he’s trying to explain a context he hasn’t fully realized, “sense of nihilism, I guess. Now it’s all, ‘more blood! More realism!” as the ideas get more and more fucked up. But back when they had black-and-white TV and, I don’t know, the plague or whatever–”

“Or whatever.”

“–they’d see a guy’s insides and think, ‘oh fuck!’ because, I don’t know. Whatever.” Stiles shrugs. “We see death in everything. We don’t want to be scared, we just want to be entertained.”

There’s a pause. Then:

“That’s very disillusioned of you,” Derek says.

Stiles sighs through his nose and shrugs again. “Is it? I mean, we have no illusions about the terrible things people do. I mean, fear has evolved. Fear is… existential. We just don’t care anymore.”

“You do.”

Stiles is quiet for a long moment. Derek’s hand moves to the nape of Stiles’ neck, fingers threading through the soft hairs there.

“But,” Stiles says. “I do love me some blood and guts.”

Derek shoots Stiles an incredulous look.

“…fictional blood and guts.”

Derek makes a noise under his breath, his fingers softly kneading Stiles’ scalp. After a pause, Derek says, “that was more profound than the situation calls for.”

Stiles shrugs. The movies end quietly, and Derek pulls out and begins the long drive back to Beacon Hills in the dark.

Stiles remembers something while his fingers are drumming against the denim of his jeans, and they pass the ‘WELCOME TO BEACON HILLS’ sign. Someone has crossed out the ‘H’ and put a red ‘K’ over it. “Can we stop at the 7-Eleven? The one on Church Street?”

Derek hums and nods. The radio crackles for a moment.

“Weird,” Stiles says. Derek clicks his tongue.

“Always happens, here.”

The 7-Eleven is on the corner of Church and Maple, and the lights flicker, the door swings open with the wind and slams shut, every few minutes, and Stiles recognizes the cashier from the station. Derek stands awkwardly at Stiles’ shoulder.

“Heeey–” Stiles leans in to read the guy’s name tag. “Gary.” Stiles remembers now; Gary Underwood. Perpetual alcoholic. Public menace.

The twitch in Gary’s eyebrow says he remembers Stiles, too.

Gary grabs the box with red hands, the harsh light showing the thick, ropey veins. Stiles looks away as Gary scans it, tapping his fingers against the counter.

“Fourteen dollars eighty.” Gary’s voice is gruff, mouth barely visible for the white beard covering it. His eyes are bloodshot, face red and hair sparse and greasy looking. Stiles wants to say that Gary has seen better days, but not in his lifetime.

Stiles grapples with his wallet, pulling out fifteen dollars and holding them out to Gary, smiling.

Gary glares until Stiles puts the money on the counter.

“Have a,” Stiles grabs the box. “Have a good day. Keep the change.” He finger-guns at Gary, and has never wanted to punch himself more than in that moment. “Stay out of trouble!”

Gary’s glare is making Stiles physically uncomfortable, so he bolts out of the 7-Eleven, almost knocking Derek over in his haste.

Back in the car, Derek looks at the box in Stiles’ hand.

Stiles shakes it about. “Theraflu,” he says. “For Bee. Hey.” He turns bodily to face Derek, twisting awkwardly in the small seat. “Can we drop by? Maybe get some coffee?”

“It’ll still be open?”

Stiles nods. “Her daughter is sometimes there. I think Boyd, too.”

Derek stares at Stiles for a long moment before smiling softly and nodding. “Yeah,” he says, already driving towards Bee’s. “Of course.”


	38. Ice, ice, baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so apparently it's unrealistic to expect to be able to write at all when you're doing hours worth of coursework, sitting exams which will decide whether or not you get into your choice unis, and you hAVE A JOB which is great but i haven't been paid and i'm being charged loads by my gym and my bank and everything is really stressful, but on the plus side none of my friends are in hospital anymore which is pretty cool. anyway i'm really sorry and i want to cry like all the time because i haven't written anything and this is really short and bad but i really just wanted to get it out there.  
> ON THE PLUS SIDE  
> i now have like a handy little schedule for all of my days and i have 1-2 hours (depending on the amount of school work i have, or even 4 hours if i don't have any revision to do) for writing and that's not including the time between me getting home and when the schedule actually starts because it starts from 4 and i can get home any time between 2-3:30 on week days SO there's honestly no excuse for me to not post anymore. things are looking up kiddies :)

_Bee’s_ is, somehow, even weirder at night.

The woods visible across the road are dark, shadows on shadows, and when they park the car and step out, the woods are loud with the wind and animals.

It’s creeping two o’clock when Derek pushes the door open, a bell chiming. He holds it open for Stiles, whose eyes narrow in on–

“Boyd!” Stiles’ grin threatens to split his face in half. He knew it – he’d never seen Boyd on shift here before, but he knew Boyd worked here. Had sworn he’d seen the yellow apron Boyd’s wearing now in his locker once.

Boyd’s standing behind the counter, rubbing it down aggressively with a pink cloth. He barely spares Stiles and Derek a glance as they sit at the bar, stools protesting.

“A co– Boyd, please. A coffee for me. Derek?”

“Coffee, please. Sugar, no cream.”

Boyd’s angry cleaning slows, and he looks up at Stiles, blinking once. “How can I help you?”

Derek’s hiding his grin behind his hands, and Stiles covers up his scowl with a laugh. “Har har. You crack me up, G-man.”

“There is no G in my name.”

“Coffee, Boyd, please.” Boyd finally turns, and fights with the coffee machine. It spews water everywhere, and Stiles winces.

Boyd just stands there, and a beat passes, and another, and Stiles could swear he hears howling in the distance.

“The machine is difficult,” Boyd finally settles on.

“Bee manages just – uh. Water, then. No ice.”

“I’ll take ice,” Derek says, and apparently he’s done with Boyd because he turns in his stool to face Stiles, raising a brow. He looks pointedly at the box in Stiles’ hand, and up again.

“Oh! Boyd.” He thrusts the box of theraflu across the counter just as Boyd slides over the water. Stiles knocks over one of the glasses, and when it shatters the jukebox splutters to silence. “…for Bee. I noticed–” he goes to wave his hand towards his nose, but Derek grabs his hand. Probably for the best. He’s pretty on edge. “She was sick, before.” Derek doesn’t let go, tangling their fingers together and rubbing his thumb in small circles on the back of Stiles’ hand. He rests their hands on his thigh, and the heat of it is intoxicating.

Boyd just stares, reaches over the counter to grab two straws – ignoring Stiles’ full body flinch – and shoves them in Derek’s water.

“Your assertive masculinity is very intimidating. You’ve been practicing. I can tell.”

Boyd picks up the theraflu. “This,” he says, “is nice.” And he smiles, and it’s so fucking unnerving that Stiles just picks up Derek’s glass and downs half of it in one, ignoring Derek’s indignant “hey,” and Boyd disappears into the kitchen.

“This,” Stiles says, “has been very strange.”

Derek doesn’t say anything, just nodding mutely, wrapping his lips around one of the straws.

They talk, idly, and the moon outside is brighter than the light inside, and Derek shoves one of the ice cubes in his mouth and nods towards the door, saying, “ready?” and Stiles just nods. Their hands are still tangled, and Stiles’ heart leaps into his throat.

 

The car journey to Stiles’ apartment is quiet, because there’s too much for Stiles to say so he says nothing at all, nothing, until they pull up in front of the cruddy apartment block, and maybe it’s the night that gives Stiles the bravery, or the heat of Derek’s hand, but he asks, _do you want to come up,_ and Derek stares at Stiles’ throat as he swallows around the words and nods, and says, _I’d like that._


	39. Bakekake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fdgdsf i've been working so hard on this other fic honestly..... i'm Excited to post it but i've totally lost control of it and i'm like a 10th of the way through and only have 10k......... it's gonna be a Crazy one kiddies.  
> anyway back to every day posting because now i'm back into the writing swing. the folks at the bar have been actually super helpful and accommodating and i've gotten so much writing done with them... but i AM running low on bakery puns (hence the fruit/various consumable chapter titles)  
> UPDATE: i won't be updating on fridays for the foreseeable future

The next morning, Stiles wakes up in stages.

First, he becomes aware of the sun filtering through where he didn’t close his curtains properly. He becomes aware of the warmth, and the yellow-white he can see behind his eyelids.

Next, he becomes aware of the warmth wrapped around him. Derek’s arm is lazy around Stiles’ waist, Stiles’ face buried in the crook of his neck.

Finally, he opens his eyes and leans back from Derek, just enough that he can see the way his eyelashes look against his cheek, the way the sun makes a halo of his hair. Derek looks so much softer like this; enough so that Stiles’ breath catches in his throat, and he wants this for the rest of his life. He does, he does.

Stiles thinks about getting up and making them coffee, and he thinks about curling back up with Derek, and he smiles, reaches up and brushes his thumb against Derek’s cheek, and gets up. He peels Derek’s arm off of him, slips out of bed, and reaches blindly along the floor until he grabs some boxers, pulling them on. He’s not sure whose they are, and he doesn’t care.

Stiles scrubs at his eyes, sitting back down on the edge of the bed – careful not to jostle Derek too much – and picks up the glasses he keeps on the bedside table. He should make some coffee, he thinks. Derek would like that.

Keith is curled up on top of the kitchen counter, watching blithely as Stiles makes them coffee – he keeps his black, but makes Derek’s just as he orders it at the bakery, and roots through his pantry. He’s sure that he – yeah, there it is. A pack of four croissants, ready to shove in the oven (or microwave, since he definitely broke his oven a little bit) and cook in two minutes.

He picks up the two mugs, careful not to spill them, and goes back into the bedroom, putting the mugs down on the bedside table and sitting next to where Derek has curled into the space Stiles left, and his breath catches in his throat again.

Last night was – last night was fucking _fantastic_ , actually, and Stiles had thought then that he wants this every day of his life, and seeing Derek in the early hours, the world outside still and quiet, and this little bubble they have warm and soft, he thinks that he wants this every day of his life. Derek looks beautiful like this, relaxed and peaceful, and he’s smiling a little even in sleep. Stiles cards his fingers through his hair, soft without any product, and it hits Stiles then – _he wants this every day of his life._ He’s always known, really, that he’s completely and utterly in love with Derek Hale, but now… now the idea of waking up to this for the rest of his fucking life isn’t some fervent fantasy, out of reach. It’s here – it’s in his bed, _he’s_ in his bed, and his eyes are fluttering open and he’s smiling blearily up at Stiles and he wants this every day of his fucking life.

Derek just smiles, like he doesn’t know what he does to Stiles, and wraps his fingers around Stiles’ wrist, bringing it to his mouth and planting a kiss against Stiles’ palm, whispering “hey,” like they have to be quiet, like there’s something gentle here that they can’t disturb.

Stiles just smiles, because that’s all he can think to do, and he leans down and kisses Derek, because that’s all he can think to do. “Hey,” he whispers back, and leans over to pick up the mugs again as Derek sits up.

“Thanks,” Derek grins, and his hair is sticking up at wild angles. Stiles has never seen something so beautiful in his life.

They sit there, and they sip their coffee, which is still a little too hot but it’s nice, and they sip it, and there’s something gentle here that they can’t disturb.

They sit there, and they smile shyly at each other – even though they know each other know, in every way possible. Stiles knows what Derek’s morning breath tastes like and he knows what he looks like when he’s being opened up, and he knows what he looks like first thing in the morning but he’s known that for a while now, really, and they smile shyly, and there’s something gentle here that they can’t disturb.

Until the microwave beeps. Derek looks at Stiles, eyebrows raised but smile never fading, not once, and Stiles says sheepishly, “croissants.”

They pad – they fucking _pad_ , how domestic – to the kitchen, Stiles putting the croissants on one big plate and pretending they don’t burn his fingers, and he shoos Keith away. Derek’s put on a white tank top and boxers, and leans back against the counter, picking up a croissant and biting into it, all the while looking and smiling at Stiles.

Stiles can’t help it – he bursts out giggling.

“What?” Derek says, but there’s laughter in his voice.

Stiles breaks into hysterics, until he’s doubled over with tears in his eyes. “I don’t – I don’t know.” He takes a deep breath and tries to straighten – ha, never in his fucking life – out, wiping at his eyes. “You’re just here, you know,” he says. “And you’re in my kitchen, with your croissants and coffee, and your _toes_ , man. Your toes are just there, on my kitchen floor.”

“I’ve had my toes out before, Stiles.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know. It’s different this time.”

Derek’s smile is blinding. “I know,” he says, and finishes his croissant.


	40. Kielbasa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kielbasa is the joke. it's a polish sausage.

There are a few things Stiles learns about Derek after that.

The first is that Derek is not a morning person. Well - Stiles has _always_ known that, really, but he learns that Derek _is_ a morning _sex_ person. And, honestly, so is Stiles.

He really, really is.

The next is that Derek, more than anything, loves to wake up next to Stiles.

(Stiles suspects it’s a lot because he always makes them coffee, but he’ll take it.)

And the last thing is that Derek has set his mum’s ring tone to Kill Bill sirens – literally, he’s in the middle of carving out table legs and Stiles is translating a poem into French when his phone starts fucking blaring, and they both swear loudly.

They both still and stare at the phone, and Derek lets it ring and ring and he doesn’t answer it.

It stops ringing. Derek just stands there, staring at the phone, like his whole life has just ended. Just like that.

“Fuck me,” Derek says.

“Who,” Stiles says. “I don’t – who has the _Kill Bill sirens_?”

Derek looks shifty. Literally – he looks at the leg, and the phone, and everywhere but Stiles. “My mom.”

“Your mom.”

“Yes.”

“The one who is in Norway right now.”

“…Supposedly, yes.”

“Is calling you.”

“Yes.”

The sirens go off again, and Derek just stares at the wall, and Stiles stares at Derek. “Derek,” he says after a pregnant pause. “Answer the phone.”

Derek finally looks at Stiles, and just as he goes for the phone –

It stops ringing.

“Oh jesus fucking christ,” he whispers, and he genuinely looks like he’s going to throw up.

It’s – it’s honestly all Stiles can do to stop himself from laughing. Because it’s funny. Fucking hilarious, actually, that Derek has literally set his mom’s ringtone as Kill Bill sirens, and now looks like he’s wondering how long it’ll take to bleed out if he picks up one of his saws right now and just fucking stabs himself with it.

He doesn’t do a very good job at all, and Derek’s now glaring at him as he curls in on himself, laughing so loud they almost don’t hear the phone ring again.

“Jesus fucking christ,” Derek says again, and picks up the phone. “Hi. Yes. Sorry, I – sorry. Yeah, sorry. Okay. Right. Okay. Yes. Alright. Yes – no. I mean, yes. Sort of? De– yes, definitely, sorry. Okay. Alright. See you later. Mom. Mom. Bye, mom. See you – jesus wept,” and he hangs up, and stares into space a little.

Stiles wipes away a tear and says, “what was that about?”

“My mom.”

“Yeah?”

“They’re flying back from Norway.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean–” Stiles stands up and strides to Derek, peeling the phone from his grip and putting it on the work table. “That’s a good thing, right? You… want to see your family, don’t you?”

Derek looks at Stiles, but he doesn’t seem to _see_ Stiles. It’s literally like he’s blacked out, or his spirit has ascended to the astral plane, or something.

“It’s… a good thing, right?”

Derek just nods, numbly. “Yeah. I mean–” he shakes his head. “It is. It’s just… they’re a lot, you know?” and Stiles does know. Jesus, does he know.

“When do they get here?”

Derek looks at his phone, and at space, and walks past Stiles like a ghost. “I have to pick them up from the airport in a few hours.”

“Wh- why are you leaving now?”

He just stops, turns to Stiles and gives him a dead-eyed look. “I’m getting coffee, idiot,” he says. “You can either come with me or stay here, I guess. Doing nothing.”

Stiles’ smile grows, and when he steps into Derek’s space he loops his fingers around his belt, tugging him close. “I mean, we can get coffee,” he purrs – or, tries to. It comes out more like he’s saying it normally, but Stiles is being _seductive_ , so he fucking purrs – “or we can spend our last moments of freedom _doing nothing_ and get coffee on our way.”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “ _Our_ way? You’re coming to pick them up with me?”

Stiles blanches. “Uh.”

“No, that’s not–”

“I mean, totally, I’ll just stay here. Or go home, uh–”

“You can come with–”

“It’s fine. No big deal. Your family, dude.”

Derek takes Stiles’ face between his hands, and kisses him. A few short, chaste kisses at first – barely brushing their lips together – but it deepens. There’s no heat behind it, but it still makes something warm unfurl in Stiles’ stomach. It still makes his toes curl and his knees weak, and he just melts into Derek.

It’s a while before Derek pulls away, and Stiles isn’t even ashamed that he chases after him, lips tingly and wet, a quiet whine caught in his throat.

(Not caught enough, because Derek’s eyes darken.)

“You’re family,” Derek says, like it’s something very important and special, and it is. It is, because Stiles’ heart stutters and he’s never heard something more important and special in his life.

Stiles literally doesn’t know what to say. His mouth opens and closes a few times, and he leans forward and kisses Derek again, a quick peck with no heat (but it still makes something warm unfurl in Stiles’ stomach) and says, “you’re family, too,” because there’s nothing else to say but the truth.

(They do spend an hour or so _doing nothing_ , and look a fucking wreck when they finally go to pick up Derek’s family.)


	41. You're like eggstasy to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for not updating yesterday to be honest by the time i got home it was late and my dad was back and we were talking and !!!! i've just been So Tired lately and i'm also really excited for you guys to read this new fic i'm working on. literally cannot say when i'll be done with it but i'm gonna try and smash out a lot of it as soon as school breaks up and then spend the next forever editing it until i cry!! but i love you all also if there's anything you'd like to see let me know?? because honestly i just do whatever in this fic. i have a few scenes planned out but gdfsgdsh.

“Where’s Uncle Peter?”

Talia coughs. “He’s picked up yodeling.”

“But isn’t that–”

“Yep.”

“And don’t they do that–”

“Yeeep.”

Derek looks vaguely scarred. Talia and the rest of them – her husband Godfrey, Derek’s aunt Josephine and her daughter Juniper the Second. Even Cora and Laura are there, and Stiles can’t for the life of him figure out why since he’s pretty sure they’re supposed to be in Puerto Rico, or something – look mildly exasperated. The rest of the Hale clan are still in Norway, supposedly (“or France,” Josephine helpfully supplies. “Or Belgium. Really, they could be anywhere.”) while Peter is frolicking naked in Germany.

“He’s going through a _thing_ ,” Laura says.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Chile, or something?” Stiles asks.

“Alaska.”

She doesn’t offer anything else.

Juniper the Second rolls her eyes. Her hair has been dyed black – the last time Stiles saw her, she was a bright blonde and a little younger – and cropped above her shoulders, her fringe choppy and uneven and short. She’s wearing a yellow top that looks like it’s gone a few rounds with the washing machine, and dungarees that look like they’ve gone a few rounds with The Smiths. She’s not wearing makeup, which is pretty much the only thing about her that’s familiar, and she’s starting to break out along her cheeks. She looks very, very angry, and also so detached she may as well not even be here right now. It’s a weird facial expression, and she is definitely a Hale. “Are we actually just going to stand here,” she says snidely, “or are we going to get a fucking coffee and go.” It’s not a question. It’s fantastic.

“Watch your language,” Josephine snaps.

“Fuck you, mom.”

Josephine looks more proud than the time Stiles had managed to down five cups of black coffee within an hour, baked for twenty-seven hours straight and didn’t die. It’s fantastic.

Stiles hooks an arm around Juniper the Second’s shoulders and gets her in a headlock, gives her a noogie (and she looks absolutely humiliated and like she’s ascended to the astral planes at the same time, it’s fantastic and he’s so proud of how quickly she’s grown up).

She shoves him away harder than Stiles was entirely expecting, and maybe he stumbles a little but Derek catches him and Stiles grabs at Juniper the Second’s arms. “Holy crap, dude, you’ve gained some muscle!”

She looks suitably sheepish, and Josephine looks a little smug but reprimands her anyway.

Talia’s glaring daggers at where Derek’s hand is resting at Stiles’ waist. “Interesting,” she says, and Godfrey is looking like he’s dissociating, staring at the bar across the airport. “Very interesting.”

Derek is looking like he’s about to hit the bar too, go on an absolute fucking bender, and it only gets worse when Stiles bursts, “we’re kissing now.”

They all give him looks – the girls look equal parts smug and entirely unsurprised, and Godfrey and Derek have absolutely no emotion in their eyes, not even a little – and Stiles says, “uh.”

“You’re–”

“Jesus fucking christ,” Derek says.

“I knew it,” Josephine grins. “Get fucked, Talia. You owe me. _You owe me_.”

“Watch your language, mom.”

“I’m really disappointed in you,” Talia says. “Could you not have waited until thanksgiving? I’m out fifty dollars, and it’s your fault.”

“Stiles’ fault,” Derek says, and promptly looks like he wants to die.

“No way am I paying your mom fifty bucks, dude. You’re totally on your own on this one.”

“Jesus fucking christ,” Godfrey says. “Either we leave or I’m drinking that bar dry.”

“Jet lag,” Talia says. “He’s been like this since our layover in Alaska.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Okay, sweetheart.”

“If I could,” Juniper the Second says. “I’d projectile vomit my very being out of this body, so I wouldn’t have to spend another minute _standing around with no coffee or car_.”

Stiles laughs. Fuck, but he’s missed these guys.

“Oh, look.” Josephine holds her phone up. “Peter’s sent me a picture from Germany.”

The Hales all make some variation of “oh god no,” or “please let me die.” Stiles looks at the picture.

“I didn’t know Peter had his dick tattooed,” he says, and Godfrey heads to the bar. Derek follows him.


	42. Blackberry messenger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't update yesterday because i was very sad

Stiles doesn’t see a whole lot of Derek for the next week.

He gets it, he totally does – it’s been a while since Derek has seen his family, and he knows that there’s literally nothing more important than family to Derek, and he gets it.

(He just got a little used to waking up to Derek wrapped around his back, and being too-hot warm in the mornings but not wanting to leave bed anyway, but it’s no big deal. He’s not a crazy boyfriend – he can last a fucking week without Derek. He’s just – not used to it.)

So he tries to bugs Scott instead, because they’re bros, or something, but he’s ‘busy, dude. Come over Saturday and we’ll hang out then,’ and when he messages the group chat he gets pretty much the exact same response (but without the invite to hang out, which is whatever) and Lydia and Allison are away in New York for a couple weeks, so…

So it occurs to Stiles that he hasn’t actually got a whole lot going on, and can’t focus enough on TV to sit long enough to watch an actual episode of anything, so he just works instead. A lot.

It’s cool, though, because Stiles does actually like his job, and he gets to hang out with Erica, who’s putting in overtime so she can go to Greece, or Spain (she hasn’t decided yet).

“You should go on vacation,” she says. It’s Thursday, and it’s quiet, and it’s four o’clock and Derek hasn’t come in, and Erica is sat on the counter, eating a strawberry cupcake.

Stiles snorts.

“I’m serious!” She hops down and shoves the rest of the cupcake in her mouth, not bothering to even chew when she continues. “You’re always working. You must have so much saved up, Stiles. Take a break.”

Stiles had brought a tray of iced buns and little tarts and put them on the top of the glass display cabinet. He opens it now, and refills it, and avoids Erica’s eyes. “I don’t need a break,” he says, and he doesn’t. He really, really doesn’t – he loves baking, and he loves the customers, and he loves getting to hang with Erica and Boyd and even when he’s just on his own, and he loves translating novels and plays and manuscripts into different languages, trying to figure out what the best word is, and he’s – he’s really fucking lucky, is what he is, to have two good jobs like that.

And he likes to keep busy, and he tells Erica as much, and she rolls her eyes, huffs, goes into the back room and doesn’t come back out.

“You’re on the clock!” he calls, and she doesn’t come back out. He rolls his eyes. Whatever. It’s not like they have any customers, anyway.

And because she has the worst fucking timing ever, Cora chooses just then to come into the bakery like she’s walking into somewhere very, very displeasing. Which is – which is _fuck you,_ really, because this bakery is very pleasing.

She comes up to the counter, stares at Stiles very hard, and raps her fingers against the glass display case.

“I need something nice,” she says, and Stiles blinks slowly at her.

“You’re in luck,” he replies, “because you’re in a bakery.”

Cora rolls her eyes. “Shut up, Stilinski. Josephine is being impossible, and Derek said to just get her something nice,” and she honest to god does scare marks. Like, she’s a real life person doing scare marks, and Stiles thought only he was weird and ironic enough to do that. Apparently not.

Apparently. Not.

“…to shut her up. And, for whatever reason,” and there’s a glint in her eyes that makes Stiles very, very uneasy, “he thinks that this way lies something nice. Or whatever.”

“Well,” Stiles says, and spreads his arms. “Here lies something nice!”

“I would rather choke.”

“Ouch, Cora.” He puts his hand on his heart. “I almost forgot how sweet you can be.”

Cora glares. “I’m on a fucking time limit here, Stilinski. She’s completely insufferable. I thought Juniper the Second was going to end her own life for a hot minute, and mom and dad have left the house. She drove them out the house, Stiles.”

He shoots Cora a look as he picks up some tongs and starts picking up some of the tarts – the lemon ones, and a few blackberry ones. They’re the best ones, in his opinion – and puts them in paper bags and puts them on the counter, already ringing them up. “Maybe she’s pregnant again,” he says.

Cora looks ill.

Stiles taps at the cash register, and pauses. Turns to the coffee machine. Cora just watches on, and doesn’t say anything, which is maybe the nicest thing she’s done for Stiles in a while.

He could make caramel lattes with his eyes closed by now. He doesn’t charge Cora for it – she didn’t ask, after all, and this is all him, and slides the coffee cup over. Cora gives him a shrewd look, and doesn’t say anything, and it is honestly the fucking nicest thing she’s done for Stiles in a while. Cora is not nice, but this is nice.

“Six dollars,” he says, and Cora digs it out of her pocket.

When she takes the bags, and the coffee, balancing them precariously in a way that would have Stiles terrified if it were someone other than Cora, she gives Stiles another look. “You know,” she says, and doesn’t say anything else, because Stiles knows. He knows. He knows. He knows.


	43. At the hearth of it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't post on thursday because i was very sad  
> also in case you guys missed it, i won't be posting on fridays for the foreseeable future!! :) <3 this one is sort of a filler but i love my girls

Allison throws herself backwards on the bed, and sighs.

“Boys are so much effort,” she says, grabbing a cushion and hugging it to her chest. “I really do forget why I keep it going.”

Lydia gives Allison a long look, a glint in her eyes, and shuts her laptop lid. “The sex, honey.”

“Hm.” Allison thinks for a long moment, then says, “that’s definitely not it.”

Lydia laughs. “Invest in a toy, then. You know, I have a couple recommendations if you need them.”

Allison groans, and throws her hands to her face. “I don’t want to know about your masturbatory habits, Lyds.” She peeks from between her fingers. “What are they?”

Lydia grins in response. “I’ll tell you all about it when we get home.” She puts her laptop down next to her and stands, stretching her back. “But for now – we’re in New York, Alli. Girls holiday. Clubbing?”

The hotel room is nice – it’s not super lavish, because maybe Lydia likes that but she knows that Allison doesn’t, particularly, and it doesn’t surprise Allison even a little by now how considerate Lydia can be with the smaller things. There’s one double bed that they’ve been sharing, with purple, silky bed sheets, and so many cushions they could make another double bed out of them.

There’s a leather couch with purple cushions that Lydia was sat on, just a second ago, and a desk with a french press, all their make up and a couple wine bottles – pretty much the only thing on the table when it’s Lydia and her on a girl’s vacation, if Allison is being honest with herself – with a nice, leather chair that’s surprisingly comfortable, and not terribly good at rolling across the room at high speeds (not that they tried it, but if they did then Allison and Lydia might have matching bruises on their forearms. But they didn’t, so they don’t).

The bathroom is surprisingly nice for a hotel bathroom – a big bath, a toilet with a little fuzzy toilet cover, and there are two sinks that share one large mirror that has little LED lights around it, and Allison is seriously considering the logistics of stealing the fucking thing and putting it in her own bathroom.

There’s a balcony, too, which is probably the nicest thing in the room. It’s big enough for a small round table and two matching chairs, all wrought iron and fancy, twisting designs, and there’s hanging plants by the French doors that lead onto it. From here, they can see what feels like the whole god damn city, can watch the sunrise in the early mornings, sat out there dressed in their pajamas and a shawl thrown over their shoulders, sipping coffee from the french press, in silence that’s both surprising and not, with Lydia. She appreciates talk with substance, and silence when there’s none.

Allison appreciates that, too.

She groans again, and says, “I can’t keep up with you at all. My feet hurt, my head still hurts–” to be fair, they’d gone clubbing only last night, and Allison was pretty sure this was gonna be a two day hangover, “…I barely feel human.”

Lydia smirks. “I feel great, personally,” and of course she does. She’d probably taken painkillers so strong Allison could stab her right now and she wouldn’t feel a thing, and drank some weird green smoothie – “it’s a cleanse,” she’d said, and Allison had nodded and pretended she could stick to any cleanse she tried.

She shrugs, though, and says, “there’s a great little Chinese place not too far from here. We can go and pick some of that up, bring it back here…” she nods towards the wine bottles. One is half full, and the other hasn’t been opened yet. They’re both red, and when they’d bought them Allison had been so drunk she couldn’t even read what it said on the label, but… yep. They’re definitely red wines.

Allison grimaces.

“Oh, come on,” Lydia says, dropping on the bed next to Allison, fingers already brushing through her hair and pulling it into little plaits. “Best cure to a hangover is to keep drinking.”

“I’m actually sure that’s the complete opposite of what you’re meant to do,” she says, but she’s already seeing the benefits.

She can go on another cleanse afterwards. After so many vacations with Lydia, she’s pretty much got a liver of steel.

“And we can go sightseeing tomorrow,” Lydia hums. “Bit of fresh air would do us good, a nice walk, nice sights…” she grins a little wickedly. She’s already won, and Allison is going to get drunk again.

The walk to the Chinese place is short – Lydia wasn’t wrong when she said it was close by – and it’s muggy as fuck outside. It’s still summer, and the city is crowded and hot with the sweat and heat of a thousand tourists, and Allison doesn’t even mind it. She loves this – the hustle and bustle of a big city, and she’s missed it since she moved to Beacon Hills.

She loves the small city life, too, quiet and peaceful, but – nothing beats the big cities. She can already smell food and cigarettes, and she can hear an argument and cars honking, and she loves it. The chaos, the sheer fucking delight of it all, like a heart that won't ever stop beating, not for a hundred, not for a thousand years. She lives for it.

The Chinese place is a really nice, fancy looking place, and Lydia walks in like she owns the place, and orders so many things Allison isn’t sure they’re not going to feed every homeless person in New York.

She’s not far off, though, because they pass a couple homeless people on the way back to the hotel and Lydia stops and gives every single one of them a small, steaming box of food from the restaurant, and Allison smiles softly.

The sun is starting to sink lazily, and it’s not cooling off, not even slightly, and it’s not even slightly quieter than it was this morning, or this afternoon, and the walk back to the hotel is short.


	44. You want a piece of me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok let me explain lmao  
> i've gone on holiday and done nothing but work and i am working on this MASSIVE fic that's shaping up to be like 100k kill me  
> IMPORTANT : this fic is on SEMI HIATUS until July  
> I am NOT ABANDONING IT!! i'm putting it on indefinite pause (but i'll probably update with a chapter here and there) because my workload right now is insane. i'm not gonna go into it because i'll cry but i just can't dedicate time to fanfic right now (though i WILL be working on that 100k fic lmao kill me!!)  
> please please please don't hesitate to follow my tumblr or my twitter (vanillawg for both) and nag me for writing updates and i'm so sorry for ghosting for ages but i have barely been on my laptop at all  
> and i'm really sorry for having to do this but i'm so busy i want to die  
> i have really big plans for this fic and it holds such a special place in my heart, and the response to it was more than i could have asked and i really really really love you guys so it breaks my heart that i have to do this but i wouldn't do it if it wasn't absolutely necessary

“We should join a pottery class,” Stiles says, icing flowers onto the cupcakes. They’re pink, cherry flavored, with diced maraschino cherries in the base. There’s a jar, opened and half-full of them, that he’s going to use to put one on each cupcake. It was a commission from one of the bitch stitch ladies – a granddaughter’s birthday, could you bring them to the library, please? Little Annabelle loves reading, her favorite books are the ones on taxidermy and entomology, what a bright young girl.

Boyd doesn’t even deign Stiles with an answer. Which – rude. But fair, also.

“I mean,” Stiles carries on anyway. He finishes the cupcake, and goes onto the next, “it would be a great bonding experience. I don’t think we spend enough time together. Do you think we do? I don’t. Obviously.” It occurs to Stiles, now, that taxidermy is a weird fucking thing for a six year old girl to be reading about (but he’s probably not one to judge).

“Derek’s still ignoring you, huh.”

“He’s not _ignoring_ me,” Stiles hisses. “Fuck me, this is less of a flower as it is a punched lasagna. He’s not ignoring – his family is here! He’s spending time with his family. It’s perfectly reasonable. I’m just, you know,” he puts the cupcake aside, and moves to the next one, “hanging out. Thinking about, like, bonding and shit. With you. And Erica! She’d join a pottery class with me.”

Boyd rolls his eyes, and goes out back. They’ve gotten a huge delivery that Boyd is – singlehandedly – hauling in.

(Stiles had dragged in one box of flour before calling it a day. Hey, he’d tried.)

(And he also had to clean up the flour he’d spilled everywhere… and Boyd had also banned him from doing deliveries, like, ever again, so help me God, Stilinski.)

(So there’s that, too.)

Stiles sniffs and shuffles around a little. There’s so many fucking cupcakes. Boyd comes back in, a box under one arm, and plucks the punched lasagna up, shoving it in his mouth and licking his fingers. “Good shit, Stilinski.”

“Fuck you, man.”

Boyd laughs, and goes out to the front. A moment later, Stiles hears the coffee machine whirring. He grumbles, and wonders if this piping hell will ever end.

Stiles doesn’t know how long he spends hunched over the counter – really, he’s been at it since five this morning, so he doesn’t know if time is either real or relevant in the fucking slightest – but Boyd comes back through and slides a mug near to him. His brain is too foggy to comprehend anything beyond _flower flower flower,_ and manages to not jump out of his skin. Instead, he grunts, all manly like, because they’re men.

“You,” Boyd says, “have a lot of issues with deflection.”

“Don’t know what you mean.” Stiles puts down the piper, and brings the jar closer to him. He takes out one of the cherries, and pops it delicately on top of the cupcake in front of him. “Do we have another jar of the maraschinos? This one isn’t going to last.”

“How long have you been at this?”

“Since five. Do we have one or not?"

“You can just visit him, you know. Or talk to him. Instead of moping about. When was the last time you stood up straight?”

“I have never stood straight. And we text,” Stiles complains. “I’m not – moping. I’m perfectly fucking capable of being away from my boyfriend for a while–”

“What has it been, two weeks?”

“Three. That’s not – fuck you, man.”

Boyd huffs a laugh and rolls his eyes, heading back out front. “Drink your coffee, freak,” he says, and Stiles glowers.

He drinks the coffee. It’s bitter, and sweet, and tastes vaguely of hazelnuts. There’s muted voices coming from the front of the store, and after a few minutes Boyd calls, “you have a visitor!”

Stiles perks up immediately. It’s Derek, right? Yeah. Yeah, Stiles thinks, it’s gotta be Derek.

He shoots up – or tries, because as soon as he tries to straighten his back there’s pain shooting up and down his spine. He grits his teeth, only grunting a little, and collapses back on the table.

“Okay,” he wheezes. “That’s not happening.”

“Stiles?” and that’s not Derek. Scott’s frowning at Stiles, coming towards him and throwing one of Stiles’ arms over his shoulder, wrapping an arm around his waist and dragging him to the break room.

“I’m a cripple,” Stiles says lightheartedly, and fuck, but his back hurts. When _was_ the last time he stood up straight? He must have been hunched over for hours.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

“Are you allowed to say that?” Scott asks as he dumps Stiles – delicately – on the sofa. “Man, you really know how to pine like a champion.”

“Shut the hell up, dude,” and Scott grins blithely.

Scott straightens, and rubs a hand through Stiles’ hair. “I’m gonna call Derek,” he says. “I was just dropping by, but you need someone to carry you home.”

“I can _get home_ on my own,” Stiles argues, and tries to push himself up. “Okay, okay, maybe not. Fuck, never mind.”

Scott rolls his eyes, which Stiles thinks is absolutely not justified. “You’re an idiot,” he says, and his tone is gentle and familiar. Stiles smiles sheepishly up at him.

He lies back and closes his eyes after Scott leaves, and he doesn’t know how much time passes until strong arms are pulling him up and pressing him against a chest.

“Mm,” he says, and buries his face in Derek’s top. “You smell good.”

“You’re an idiot,” Derek replies. “Have you had aspirin or anything?”

He shakes his head. “We ran out. Erica was crushing it and selling it to the college students down at the library.”

“That’s – that’s illegal, Stiles. That’s a crime.”

He nods. It absolutely fucking is.

“C’mon,” Derek says, and his voice is so, so soft, and his arms are warm, and safe, and Stiles could melt. He really, truly could. “Gonna take you home, now.”


	45. I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S STILL JULY SO I DIDN'T LIE WHEN I SAID I'D CONTINUE IN JULY  
> ok here's some important information :  
> it has been a long time since i last worked on this fic, and longer still since i started it. a lot has changed since then; my writing style, first of all, has changed (not necessarily for the better but we can't have it all, can we), and along with this the way that i write the characters. when i was reading back through this it was really obvious to me that the way i write the characters is so different. like, i don't write the women as commanding and typical as i have in this anymore, and i don't write stiles or derek the same way. this is particularly important as where i left this off, if i were writing it now i would not have done that at all. this chapter is short, and it's not very good, because it's been a very long time since i've been able to write anything and as per it's not been edited at all as that isn't the point of this story - but mostly this chapter is sort of to steer away from what happened in the previous chapter, and to push the relationship and dynamic between stiles and derek forward. it's a filler chapter more than anything in order to achieve this, and hopefully it will work out. also the story so far as i've been reading through it just Isn't That Good , and neither is this chapter , but hopefully in the future chapters you'll be able to see my writing progression.  
> i obviously had ideas of where i wanted this story to go when i first started it, but again my writing and direction of narrative is different now so i have some old ideas and some new ideas of what i want to happen, and how i want to bring this to a close. this isn't to say that i'm near the end, as every chapter is short, but i know where i do want this to end.  
> when i first started writing this i pretty quickly learnt that with the general word limit i put on myself i wasn't going to get the exact story that i'd planned, and i'm not now either, but like the concept of it has stayed the same; it's about the relationship between the two, and it's about its progression, and more than anything it is a writing exercise.  
> it again has been a long, long time since i've been able to actually write anything (which i now post under the pseud vanillawg, and there's really no point asking why because i don't know either, there was a reason at the time and i think that reason was branding, but whatever, that's how it is) and i've had a crazy amount going on, and the last year hasn't been a lot of fun for me. that is, i've struggled a lot, and i've not really had any time to just sit down and enjoy writing again.  
> i've finished high school now and i've got an original novel in the works and i still love sterek as much now as i did when i first started writing for it, and i'm excited to get back into the swing of it, but it's hard! writing is hard!  
> finally i've been meaning to post for a while but i've been busy this month and also really ill lmfao. death is coming for me.

Here’s the unfortunate truth about Stiles: he latches onto things, and he latches onto people.

Derek has the terrible luck of being the new object of Stiles’s affection, and Stiles isn’t good at being alone.

It’s also an ugly fact that Stiles isn’t really a relationship guy. That is: he’s in love with Derek, and he’s been in love with Derek, and he absolutely wants to settle down and live with him and marry the fuck out of him, and he absolutely wants to adopt beautiful little babies and call them dumb nicknames and bake for them, and blah blah, and all this and that.

But Stiles isn’t a relationship guy. He’s never really been in one before Derek, which is sad and pathetic because he’s in his twenties and the most he’s ever got from someone is a fuck-buddies kind of deal with this guy in college that was never very kind, and the most he’s ever got was his freaky obsession with Lydia during high school.

Stiles obsesses, and he sinks his teeth into things, and apparently that’s detrimental to his every day living.

Derek’s sat on the bed next to where Stiles is lying down. He’s reading a book and he’s got a little furrow between his brows.

Stiles knows. He knows, he knows, that Derek is going to say something.

And it’s dumb; like, it’s totally fucking idiotic, because Stiles knows Derek’s family, and he’s close to them. He picked them up at the airport and joked with them, and Derek goes a little quiet for a little time while he’s with his family – after not seeing them for so, so long, besides – and it feels like this thing that’s too big, too big, for Stiles to wrap his hands around.

It’s him, he knows, that has created this feeling inside of his own head, because Derek had been soft and kind to him when carrying him home, but Stiles knows, he knows, that Derek is going to say something.

“I’ve never,” Stiles starts. The quiet between them is familiar and nothing, nothing, but Stiles knows that he’s the one who’s been a fucking freak about this for no reason, except: “…been in a relationship before, and I guess I weirded out a lot at the thought of hanging out with your family and you in the capacity of, like,” he waves his hand around loosely, “your boyfriend.”

Derek has put down his book, with his finger marking the page still, like he’s not expecting this to be a long conversation. Likely, it won’t be. “You have some dependency issues,” Derek says. There’s a lilt to the sentence, like there’s a part two, but there isn’t.

He doesn’t offer anything else.

“I just get caught up in my work, and you weren’t, like, coming around to the bakery–”

“For a few days, and you found something else to fixate on, and you hurt yourself.” Derek looks down at his book, and he looks out the window, and he looks back at Stiles. “What do you think is honestly so different?”

This whole thing could go in two ways:

The first, and the ideal, is that they will stay together. They will argue and make up, and they’ll buy a nice little house together and have all the boring fucking domestic crap that Stiles wants with Derek.

The second is, obviously, that they’ll break up. They won’t work out, because Stiles is abrasive and awkward and Derek can be quiet and they both pick at the ugly little things, and they both press in different ways. Stiles’s co-dependence puts Derek in a weird and uncomfortable situation, because it’s unfair to him, and it’s unfair to Stiles, that Derek should be the one looking out for Stiles all the time. Stiles has the horrible little habit of latching onto people, and he freaked himself out so hard over – he doesn’t even know what over, the idea of the future, maybe, that he hurt himself, just like Derek said.

It’s an ugly thing that Stiles is, sometimes, but he’s always had his dad, and he’s always had Scott, and he’s never really had someone in the capacity that he has Derek now.

But, like – what is different? They’re best friends who kiss and have sex, and they’ve not talked about the future at all.

He’s just dramatic. He’s dramatic, and he’s gay, and he’s tired.

“I didn’t want to smother you, or whatever, I guess,” Stiles says, because this is likely the closest thing to the truth that he can think of: he didn’t want to be the overbearing boyfriend who pushes himself into every crevice of Derek’s life. But Derek has let him into these spaces anyway, and he’s always been there. “I don’t know. I’m new to this.”

“I don’t want to be put in a position where I have to be constantly worrying about you,” Derek reaches over and pushes Stiles’s hair out of his face, runs his fingers through it, “and you know you’re my best friend, and you know my family. I know this is new to you, but you don’t have to think so hard about it. Nothing has changed.”

Stiles is quiet, and doesn’t know where to start. He always freaks out, and he always ruins things.

But Derek’s hands feel nice in his hair, and he thinks that he can start there.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! <3
> 
> My [ tumblr](http://vanillawg.tumblr.com/)


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